Sibling SUVs Deliver for Ford and Mazda

Ford’s newest SUV ought to be called Attack, not Escape; its Mazda sibling not Tribute but Torment.

That’s what the two smartly sized, well-packaged and nicely balanced vehicles will be doing to the competition once they begin rolling through dealerships this summer.

Ford has discovered that there is at best a limited market for big, lumbering, oversize sport-utility vehicles--the brute utes that exhibit the road-holding grace of a three-legged pachyderm and the thirst of a dromedary stocking up for a Saharan safari. Indeed, after bragging that it was selling more 19-foot, 4-ton Excursions than it could make, Ford earlier this month announced a 25% cut in production. Demand, it said, had weakened.

That’s not likely to be the case any time soon, though, for the 2001 Ford Escape. Nor for the 2001 Mazda Tribute, if Ford’s Japanese stablemate gets its marketing right. This is Mazda’s first SUV since it dropped the upscale (but slow-selling) Navajo version of the Ford Explorer Sport in 1994. A year later, the two-door SUV market exploded.

Unlike those larger predecessors, the Escape and Tribute are not identical twins, though they do share most components under the skin. The external differences alone should make it easier for Mazda to move quite a few.

Though jointly developed by Ford and Mazda, with Mazda taking the lead in engineering, the two SUVs offer distinct styles and market missions. They share almost no sheet metal or glass, the instrument panels and front seats are unique to the individual brands, and ride and handling characteristics have been carefully tuned to differentiate.

Another benefit for Mazda is that the Tribute, sleeker than the Ford and styled to compete in the near-luxury, sporty-ute category, is the crisper of the two, with tighter steering, more aggressive shift points in the four-speed automatic transmission, stiffer shock absorbers and larger, 16-inch standard wheels and tires.

On a recent weekend drive around Southern California--everything from freeway commutes to a brisk romp through the foothills and canyon roads of the Cleveland National Forest--the Tribute performed with almost Teutonic precision. The 200-horsepower V-6 won’t threaten the boys from BMW, but there’s plenty of acceleration, a stable, comfortable highway ride and a deft suspension and steering setup that makes tight mountain curves fun to navigate.

Tribute brand manager Gary Roudebush says Mazda is positioning its truck to be “an upscale, sophisticated SUV with the soul of a sports car.”

The blunt-nosed Ford Escape bears a distinct family resemblance to the current Explorer--although one of its myriad available exterior colors, a vivid Lifeguard Yellow, gives it kinship with Nissan’s quite successful Xterra--and has more middle-of-the-road breeding. The driver has to push a little to put it through its paces.

Ford wants it to say “truck” and to bask in the glow of the brand’s hot-selling truck line, says chief platform engineer Keith Takasawa.

Rest assured, though, that the Escape is a whole lot smoother than, say, an F-150 pickup. With its independent rear suspension, the Escape still handles and rides like a well-balanced car.

Mazda has not announced pricing, but a spokesman said the Tribute will be comparable to similarly equipped versions of the Escape, which starts at $18,160 for the base model and climbs to $21,335 before options. A fully equipped Escape with V-6 engine and all-wheel drive will run about $25,500.

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The Escape and Tribute share a new, front-wheel-drive unibody platform jointly developed by Ford and Mazda engineers. They also share engines.

Ford’s 3.0-liter, 200-horsepower Duratech V-6 is standard in the Tribute’s LX and ES trim levels, an option on the base Tribute DX model and on both Escape models, the XLS and XLT. It provides plenty of power and torque (200 foot-pounds) for the relatively lightweight vehicles (3,065 to 3,460 pounds, depending on equipment).

Another Ford engine, the 2.0-liter, 130-horsepower Zetech inline-4, is standard in the Tribute DX and in both Escape trim levels. The Zetech is mated to a five-speed manual transmission; the V-6 comes only with the automatic.

Both makers provide front-drive and all-wheel-drive versions. The latter are equipped with a switch that lets the driver select full-time automatic AWD, which sends up to 50% of drive power to the rear wheels as needed, or manually lock into a 50-50 traction split between front and rear--useful in deep snow or on wet, muddy or very loose and slippery road surfaces.

Ford calls it Control Trac II, the second generation of the manual system used on the Explorer and other Ford four-wheel-drive vehicles; Mazda calls it by its technical name, rotary blade coupling.

We tried it out on the Escape on a couple of muddy lumber trails in the hills around Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco, and found the system up to the task. This is not a vehicle to take rock hopping in the Sierra Nevada or canyon crawling deep in the Arizona desert, but for hauling a load of vacationers up that nasty gravel trail to the summer cabin or through snow-packed streets to the ski lodge. it will compete well with any AWD system available.

We also ran the Escape through its paces on the winding asphalt up U.S. 101 (and a passel of side roads) from San Francisco’s Presidio to the Russian River and back. The differences between the Ford and the Mazda are subtle but discernible. The Ford’s slightly softer suspension and higher steering ratio permit a little body roll on tight curves and make the driver work a little harder sweeping through the esses. Nothing nasty, mind you, but enough to remind you that Ford is, indeed, pushing the tough-truck heritage with this one.

Fuel economy for both SUVs is estimated at 20 miles per gallon around town and 24 mpg on the highway for the all-wheel-drive V-6 versions; 23 city and 28 highway for the front-wheel-drive inline-4s. Both trucks earn federal rating as low-emissions vehicles, as do all of Ford’s SUVs. And Ford has announced that it will bring out a hybrid gasoline-electric version of the Escape in 2003 that it expects to win rating as a super-low-emissions vehicle, or SULEV, from California’s Air Resources Board.

While both Ford and Mazda call these vehicles SUVs, it’s an overworked term these days, and we’d suggest another designation, perhaps sporty-utility blend. (See accompanying story.)

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However you categorize them, both the Escape and Tribute should deliver.

They are 17.7 inches shorter than the four-door Explorer but 2 inches wider. Because most of the length was taken from the front overhang, engine compartment and rear cargo area, they are almost as roomy as the Explorer in the passenger cabin.

Seats are comfortable--the Mazda’s a bit grippier, with firmer side bolsters. Flip-down rear seat backs not only are thicker and more supportive than most, but they also adjust to five different positions so that passengers are not condemned to ride bolt upright. Like most small vehicles--car or truck or crossover--the Ford-Mazda siblings are rated for five occupants but do best with four, unless those in the rear seats are of small stature.

Safety features include optional front-seat side air bags, child safety seat tethers and anchors, side-intrusion door beams, dual front air bags and a controlled-crush architecture designed to dissipate energy down through the frame and up through the roof in a frontal crash.

These are shortish vehicles, so cargo capacity won’t match that of a compact SUV such as the Explorer or Isuzu’s Rodeo. The overall length is 173 inches, the wheelbase 103.1 inches.

The rear tailgate and the tailgate window each are wide enough to handle 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood or paneling (although 3 feet will have to hang out), and the tailgate window opens independently to permit easy access to the cargo hold.

With the base four-banger, the Escape-Tribute’s 1,000-pound towing capacity is nothing to boast about. It grows to 2,000 pounds with the V-6, though, and the addition of an optional tow package boosts it to 3,500 pounds.

Anti-lock braking is an option on all but the base models. Standard brakes on all models are 10.9-inch discs up front and 9-inch drums in the rear.

The Escape comes in only the two trim levels, with limited options that include leather seating and a power driver’s seat for the XLT, the V-6 engine and automatic transmission for both XLS and XLT. There’s also an in-dash, six-disc CD changer for the XLT (you’ll have to go to the aftermarket to get one for the XLS, which has a single-disc player).

The Tribute is available in three trim levels, and available options would pretty much enable the buyer of a base DX to outfit it to equal the top-of-the-line ES, although leather seating is exclusive to the ES.

Goodies such as air conditioning, power windows, single-CD stereo systems and body cladding are standard on all models.

Both the Ford and Mazda left-hand-drive models for North America and most of Europe are being made at Ford’s assembly plant in Kansas City, Mo. Ford plans to turn out 220,000 a year, while Mazda will build about 50,000 right-hand-drive models, both Fords and Mazdas, for England, Australia and Japan.

The Tribute is expected to start showing up in limited numbers at area Mazda dealers by late June, the Escape by mid-July, although it will be late summer, possibly mid-September, before either gets its official launch.

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Final words: George Peterson, president and founder of AutoPacific Inc., a Tustin automotive market research firm, says the Escape “is a home run for Ford.” Mazda certainly should share in the success. And if Ford and Mazda dealers resist the urge to make a few extra bucks on the vehicles at first, when supplies are tight, consumers in the market for more than a car and less than a full-fledged SUV will be winners with either of these two sport-utility blends.