The Ford Endeavour has been given a minor makeover and a slight price cut. And yet, on the sand dunes of Jaisalmer, it proved that it remains the finest car in its class

There are often vehicles that surprise you with sales that belie their ability, and the Ford Endeavour has always been one of those cars. Because it is so darn good at what it says on the cover, the Endeavour remains one of the best off-road vehicles available in India. It is really not something that you should consider a ‘Sports Utility Vehicle’ but a car that is a full-fledged off-roader. And Ford India just gave the car a minor update, adding a new grille among some other small things, but most importantly, the Endeavour gets a Rs 30,000-50,000 price cut. Prices now begin at Rs 28.19 lakh and go up to Rs 32.97 lakh. In addition, the range now starts with a six-speed manual version of the 2.2-litre variant, and it is not available only in the titanium trim.

All well and good, but why, you would ask rather reasonably, would a good car not sell very well. Well, there is the minor matter of the Toyota Fortuner, which in terms of almost everything is not as capable as the Ford but is built stronger than a Red Army tank from World War II and has a resale value that would make most other cars red with embarrassment. While I would consider the Innova to be a far more practical vehicle, the Fortuner has always exuded confidence and power. The white Fortuner in particular has been incredibly popular with politicians. In fact, one would argue that a white Fortuner is as essential a part of an Indian politician’s wardrobe as a starched khadi kurta. And Ford, which did have first-mover advantage in the market if you remember, did miss a trick by delaying introducing the new Endeavour, allowing Toyota to come in and steal the market.

But you know what? While driving over the sand of the Sam dunes outside Jaisalmer, we saw a couple of politicians also driving up and down the sand. And both those gentlemen and their retinue were travelling in Endeavours. One of them plainly stated that if you wanted to do this sort of stuff, only Endeavour can do that. Well, you can do similar things in much more expensive cars like the Land Rover Discovery and Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, but you get the point, right?

This isn’t the first time I have been on the soft, fine sand of the Sam sand dunes. The last time I was in a (then) prototype of the Mahindra Thar and even today, the dunes are full of Mahindra 540s and Thars with local drivers driving like utter maniacs and tourists, without a care of personal preservation, standing at the back. Sure, it looks fun, but somehow nowadays I just see a tragedy waiting to happen with no safety gear. These are light, four-wheeled vehicles unencumbered by the weight of creature comforts and ride over the sand with a sense of purpose. And they are fun to drive over the sand because you can virtually do anything.

The Ford Endeavour on the other hand is a heavy vehicle, with full smartphone connectivity, three-zone air-conditioning as well as three rows of comfortable seats which include lumbar and side support. Really, it should not have been doing what we were doing with the car. Sure, we had reduced the tire pressure to give the Endeavour’s rubber a wider contact patch, but other than that and switching the car’s terrain response system to ‘sand’ mode, there were no modifications to the car. Nothing, nada.

We drove over the dunes quite comfortably, and the one time I did get stuck, it was my fault in not giving the Endeavour enough gas at that moment. The one thing about driving on sand or other non-road surfaces such as ice or gravel is that you often have to do things that might appear to be counter-intuitive. While I’m really not making excuses for my driving abilities, I cannot praise the car enough. Think about it, this is an almost three-ton car driving on a surface that you would assume something so heavy would need tracks like a tank.

It is not perfect. I do not like the incredibly small speedometer and instrument cluster, a vehicle’s speedometer should at least reflect its size and this one is tiny. While you can get a bunch of information on the cluster, you have to choose between the rev counter and the trip meter.

But these were minor irritants at the time and living with them though could be an issue. I have gone off-roading in the Endeavour in the past as well and then, like now, it impressed with its sheer ability. If I was a politician who wanted to go deep into the countryside on tracks rather than on the road, I know what I would buy.