DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Ford Explorer could return

UPDATED 16/01/2018 12:10pm: Newly appointed Ford Asia-Pacific boss Peter Fleet has thrown his support behind releasing the next-generation Explorer SUV in right-hand drive and making it available for Australian sale.

“I would love to have wider availability of Explorer,” he told motoring.com.au at the Detroit motor show.

“It’s a power brand globally. Even in markets where we haven’t sold Explorer, people know what that is.

“Within our company it is such a strong product, so I would love that opportunity.

“We made that decision and went global with Mustang, but frankly we haven’t made that decision yet with Explorer. If I get my business case lined up then I would love to globalise the Explorer.”

Ford has left tantalisingly open the prospect of a true seven-seat replacement for its defunct Australian-made Territory.

Speaking after the reveal of the facelifted Ford Edge on the eve of the Detroit motor show, the Blue Oval's global product development chief Hau Thai-Tang confirmed at least a couple of options were in the pipeline.

One is a seven-seat version of the Edge, which will be renamed Endura and sold exclusively in five-seat turbo-diesel form when it goes on sale in Australia in late 2018.

The other is the next-generation Ford Explorer due for launch in North America in 2019, which like the Edge/Endura, rides on a car-based monocoque.

Territory production ceased in October 2016 and the only seven-seater on offer from Ford since then has been the Everest, the Ranger-based hard-core off-roader.

A long wheelbase seven-seat version of the Edge/Endura is built in China for domestic consumption only.

But Hau said there was potential for a seven seat Edge/Edge to be built in another factory. Right-hand drive examples are currently built in Canada.

"Potentially there is," Hau said of chances of a seven-seat right-hand drive Edge/Endura. "But right now, we see the critical mass is mostly in the China market and obviously, we have other products that offer the three-rows – Everest for instance.

"So, we try to make sure we don't have the overlap in those products."

Hau said sourcing right-hand drive production of a seven-seater from China was ruled out by Ford Australia for a number of reasons.

"We have the three-row in the China market and I think it was just coming down to the local team's call and the market opportunity and whether it would justify the unique engineering with the right-hand drive."

Hau confirmed the same business case challenges had deemed the hi-po twin-turbo 2.7-litre petrol V6-powered Edge ST launched in Detroit as unsuitable for Australia as well.

Hau was more enthusiastic about the prospects for the Explorer, a previous generation of which was sold unsuccessfully in Australia between 1996 and 2005 and was embroiled in the Firestone puncture controversy, earning it the nickname ‘Exploder'.

But the latest, car-based Explorer has been North America's top-selling for 27 years running, and its replacement could be a global model produced in both left- and right-hand drive.

"I think the Australian market would be a good market for it – in other markets it's a little bit big," he said. "There's nothing [definitive] as yet ... we are always looking."

Meanwhile, Hau confirmed the Edge/Endura had undergone extensive local testing and had ended up with a chassis setting that drew on both UK and European tuning.

"When we bring products into Australia we leverage the team and they do all the testing in Geelong at the proving grounds," Hau confirmed.

"We started with a lot of the same changes we made when we went into Europe. It's a pretty good proxy and the work we do around that, especially UK Band C roads in terms of vehicle dynamics.

"But then we married some of the off-road capability that we have for the US because of some of the things you have in that market [Australia]."

Click here for our full coverage from the 2018 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.