Ken Gratton•29 Sept 2014
NEWS
SPY PICS: New peek at Everest and Ranger
Ford's important new SUV for the local market will launch globally in NovemberWe have previously spotted Ford's Everest SUV testing in camouflage, but an alert reader recently snapped the SUV accompanied by a facelift of the Ranger pick-up on test at Victoria's Dinner Plain.
The SUV is scheduled for a global launch in China from November 13, and will go on sale in Australia next year.
Ford has officially established how the Everest will look in concept car form, on display in Sydney last year. It's difficult to tell under all the camo, but the facelifted Ranger does appear to sport a grille very similar in style to that of the Everest, as we predicted back in June.
While the Ranger is important for commercial vehicle buyers, the Everest is probably all the more significant to Ford's SUV customers in the period leading up to the end of Territory production at Broadmeadows in 2016. The full-chassis Everest won't be a successor to the monocoque Territory, despite its independent rear end.
Ford Australia's Communications & Public Affairs Director, Wes Sherwood, last week confirmed with motoring.com.au: "obviously we're going to have a Territory replacement," but it simply won't be the Everest.
Whatever replaces the Territory will be a softer, 'family SUV', as Sherwood described it. At this point in time, the money's on either the Canadian-built Edge, which will definitely be available in right-hand drive, or the Explorer, which was effectively ruled out by Ford Australia two years prior to announcing it would end local production of the Territory.
Things may have changed since...
By coincidence, three Aussie journalists were ferried to LAX (Los Angeles Airport) in an Explorer for the flight home after sampling Ford's Mustang in California last week. The seven-seat Explorer rode well and ran quietly, but according to one journo, didn't actually feel as wide inside as the current Territory, due principally to its second-row seat design.
With Edge and Everest available in the market, there would arguably be no call for an Explorer to replace the Territory in 2017. That's not to say however that the Explorer remains off limits for Australia. It depends to a large extent on whether the Edge we get here will be available with seven seats, or whether the Explorer can be offered with a diesel engine – both of which the Territory provides.
Sherwood looks forward to the Everest's arrival in Australia, and with the diesel engine option in that, a soft-road successor to Territory may not need a diesel, and especially not if Ford can bring in EcoBoost and even hybrid-drive variants.
"With [Everest] coming it gives us a great entry into the heart of where the momentum is [SUV sales]," Sherwood said last week.
Everest and a soft-road successor to Territory will provide Ford Australia with a duo to combat Toyota's Kluger and Prado for the first time since the Explorer's local cessation in 2005. Territory has frequently outsold Kluger in the past, but the Ford was never robust enough or sufficiently capable off-road to take on Prado.
How will Ford pitch the Everest against Prado?
"We're in the concept phase right now, so it's really tough to talk about," Sherwood replied. "The production vehicle... we haven't talked about, other than the fact that there will be one."
How Everest will fare in the market remains then a matter for conjecture, but Ford will be hoping for sales considerably closer to the Prado than Holden has managed with the Colorado 7.
Toyota has sold nearly 11,000 Prados so far this year; Colorado 7 has sold just 987 vehicles for the year to date.
By virtue of being such an imposing target, Toyota is in Ford's gunsights in a big way, from this point forward. Sherwood says that the Holden vs. Ford rivalry will rapidly become a thing of the past as Broadmeadows shifts aim to take market share off the most popular brand in the country. Prado could be in serious danger, with the Everest boasting an independent rear end, and all the Ranger's mechanicals.
"It's going to be, to a degree... where we're going to go up against the leaders; we want to get on the shopping list and be the top choice, regardless of what segment we're in," Sherwood said.
"You're not hearing a tonne from us right now; that's going to change. It's really starting to ramp up, is my sense of things."
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Ford
Car News
SUV
4x4 Offroad Cars
Family Cars
Spy Pics
Written byKen Gratton
Our team of independent expert car reviewers and journalists
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