Auto Car | Ford Flex with Ecoboost 2010 | Just a year after the Ford Flex first appeared, the Blue Oval has revamped its lineup in ways that make the 2010 model quite different from its forebearer. First among the changes is the Blue Oval's EcoBoost engine, which packs 3.5 liters of displacement and a duo of turbochargers to produce V8 power with V6 fuel economy. Autoblog went to the Colorado hinterlands to spend some with with the Flex and its new powerplant, and as we found out, there's more to Ford's boxy crossover than boosted performance and fuel economy.
First came wagons, and they ruled the American landscape for decades. Then body-on-frame SUVs (previously known simply as "trucks") remade the wagon by hoisting it up and adding four-wheel-drive. When the price of SUV feedstock – gas – went ballistic, their owners fled into crossovers, which remade the SUV by being lighter, nicer to drive and easier on the debit card. Then came the Ford Flex, which set out to rework both the SUV and CUV by providing 'ute-like room with a car-like ride, even though the car-like seating position is what drove wagons into the swamps and tarpits in the first place.
The design theory behind the Flex – to an outsider at least – is simple: a little box and a big box on wheels. And not far off the ground. The crucial aspect of the theory is that the Flex isn't meant to be compared against traditional CUVs; Ford has put it in the pit with full-sized SUVs like Chevrolet's Suburban and Tahoe, Dodge's Durango, Toyota's Sequoia and Jeep's Commander. And while it fights the heavyweights, it's also meant to dispatch miscellaneous challengers like General Motors' Lambda quadrouplets, the GMC Acadia/Saturn Outlook/Chevrolet Traverse/Buick Enclave, and, oh yeah, minivans.
The theory is starting to meet ith some success: the Flex sold 20,016 units through the first six months of 2009. That's well down on blustery initial projections of 100,000 units per year, but well above full-sized SUVs like the Suburban and Sequoia. It's also well outpaced by incumbents like the Dodge Caravan and Acadia, yet nearly matching the Enclave's numbers. However, May and June were both sales records for the Flex, and with the EcoBoost model and its improvements, we suspect Ford can look ahead to more gains.
According to the automaker's research, the Flex is doing all the right things from a brand perspective. Forty-percent of buyers are conquest sales, more than half of that coming from Toyota and Honda, and 49% of them are new to the Ford family.
First came wagons, and they ruled the American landscape for decades. Then body-on-frame SUVs (previously known simply as "trucks") remade the wagon by hoisting it up and adding four-wheel-drive. When the price of SUV feedstock – gas – went ballistic, their owners fled into crossovers, which remade the SUV by being lighter, nicer to drive and easier on the debit card. Then came the Ford Flex, which set out to rework both the SUV and CUV by providing 'ute-like room with a car-like ride, even though the car-like seating position is what drove wagons into the swamps and tarpits in the first place.
The design theory behind the Flex – to an outsider at least – is simple: a little box and a big box on wheels. And not far off the ground. The crucial aspect of the theory is that the Flex isn't meant to be compared against traditional CUVs; Ford has put it in the pit with full-sized SUVs like Chevrolet's Suburban and Tahoe, Dodge's Durango, Toyota's Sequoia and Jeep's Commander. And while it fights the heavyweights, it's also meant to dispatch miscellaneous challengers like General Motors' Lambda quadrouplets, the GMC Acadia/Saturn Outlook/Chevrolet Traverse/Buick Enclave, and, oh yeah, minivans.
The theory is starting to meet ith some success: the Flex sold 20,016 units through the first six months of 2009. That's well down on blustery initial projections of 100,000 units per year, but well above full-sized SUVs like the Suburban and Sequoia. It's also well outpaced by incumbents like the Dodge Caravan and Acadia, yet nearly matching the Enclave's numbers. However, May and June were both sales records for the Flex, and with the EcoBoost model and its improvements, we suspect Ford can look ahead to more gains.
According to the automaker's research, the Flex is doing all the right things from a brand perspective. Forty-percent of buyers are conquest sales, more than half of that coming from Toyota and Honda, and 49% of them are new to the Ford family.
Source : www.autoblog.com
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