For reasons I won't go into here, because it would be more fun to keep you guessing, I found myself in the position recently of having to transport two very large packages to Iran. What luck, then, that the car I happened to be driving that week was a Ford Explorer.Some clarification may be in order. No, of course I wasn't going to drive all the way to Iran myself - apart from anything else, judging by the steep descent of the fuel gauge needle every time I touched the throttle pedal, by the time I'd got to the Middle East somebody would have to have invented a new form of fuel to allow me to come back again, since I would certainly have run the planet's petrol resources dry on the outward journey. All I had to do was drive from point A, where the packages were, to point B, where the freight company was, a distance of about fifteen miles.In normal circumstances this would probably have involved hiring a van, but when I laid the Explorer's rear seats flat I discovered I had a van already. It's a jolly large vehicle, this, even though like many big off-roaders it has a high floor which reduces the vertical interior space quite noticeably.The packages in question (look, they weren't carrying guns or ammunition, so will you stop speculating?) were not particularly heavy, but even if they had been it would have been no problem to the Explorer, which has bags of power and feels like it could tow your house behind it if the need arose.So far so good. Better still is the fact that this is a comfortable car to drive, with splendid seats and generally well-placed controls.However . . . I don't know how much longer the Explorer can keep going in this market. The constant aim of manufacturers who build thunderous mud-pluggers is to make them feel like executive saloons to drive. I mean, let's face it - these vehicles are simply not being used in the conditions to which they are best suited, namely clambering over amusingly silly obstacles and remaining in control down dizzyingly steep and inconveniently slippery gradients.Previous experience of the Explorer has shown that it can do all that very well. What it can't do satisfactorily is travel along a straight piece of tarmac with anything other than a billiard-table surface. The slightest bump on the road comes crashing into the driving compartment via the none too sophisticated suspension, giving the lie to the well-furnished interior and showing that this is an off-roader first and a long-distance cruiser fiftieth.The Explorer has been on sale in this country for a few years now, yet most of my car-conscious friends said they had never seen one before, or even heard of it. The UK doesn't exactly have a shortage of Ford dealerships, so the reason has to be at least partly that this car is lagging well behind other big off-roaders in terms of its on-road behaviour.If Ford is serious about this market, it should do one of two things. First, ditch the current Explorer and produce something which is more suitable for the people who buy cars like this. Or second, buy (preferably cheaply) a company (preferably ailing) which is already well known to potential customers and has plenty of existing cars (preferably ripe for development). Like Land Rover, for example.Of course, yes, it's just done that. Well, there you go. Expect Ford to work hard at improving the Range Rover and Discovery, and expect the Explorer to fizzle out and become a footnote in the history of the UK motor industry.Second opinion: The thing you have to grasp about the Explorer is that, although it's the only US-built Ford (from St Louis, Missouri) produced in right-hand drive form for the UK market, it wasn't designed for UK conditions in the first place. It's a big American sports utility, in fact the best-selling vehicle of that kind worldwide. Strong performer, a whizz off-road as some forest antics showed, with a good five-speed auto transmission and effective four-wheel drive. Okay, it doesn't show up too well on bouncy British main roads, but it's remarkable how it seems to shrink when you get it onto little country lanes where it feels, somehow, very much at home. Explorers aren't as invisible as all that, with nearly 4500 sold here in three years. The North Face version, about £1500 more expensive than the standard XLT, is loaded with equipment. Its name, incidentally, doesn't come directly from the North Face of the Eiger, but indirectly via a mountaineering and outdoor clothing company. Ross Finlay. Engine 4008cc, 6cylinders Power 204bhp @5250rpm Torque ib/ft @3250rpm Transmission 5 speed auto Fuel/CO2 20.6mpg / 350g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 10.9sec Top speed 120mph Price From £27191.00 approx Release date 01/11/1999
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