Ford’s second-generation Endeavour has taken its time to come into the market. The question is was the wait worth it and does Ford have a vehicle that can beat the market leading Toyota Fortuner, finds out KUSHAN MITRA
Ford Endeavour was the first international large Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) to come to India over a decade ago. I remember test-driving that car down the nicer parts of Mathura Road in Delhi and being stopped a fair number of times by other road users, obviously impressed by this huge, new car.
A decade and car-generation later, the new Ford Endeavour also brought traffic around me to a standstill, and questions such as “Kitne ki haiIJ” (how much does it costIJ) and “Kaisi haiIJ” were asked at least a dozen times every day. Unfortunately, while I could answer the former, I could not answer the latter until I had spent some time with the vehicle.
Well, I can happily state that now I can answer that very important question. And the short answer is that it is fairly impressive. And given that it will stand up to the runaway success story that is the Toyota Fortuner, Ford gets the basic stuff right. Most importantly, the Endeavour looks big. Ford has avoided going down the Hyundai route with the Santa Fe, and has avoided angular lines, great on a hatchback and sedan, not necessarily a good idea on what is basically a small bus.
But most importantly, not only does the car look big, it is big. It is positively vast inside, so vast that one time while sitting in the back and trying to operate the very nice multimedia system, I could do so while comfortably on my knees without interfering with either the driver or the front passenger. The third row is more than just functional, it is quite comfortable actually, but like all three-row cars using the third row compromises storage space. That said, it only compromises storage space and doesn’t make it vanish, so you could carry a large suitcase. Not two suitcases, but that said, both the second and third rows fold fully flat at the lift of a lever, so really that is not a big deal.
On to the actual driving of the car. The car that Ford provided was equipped with the smaller 2.2-litre engine and lacked four-wheel drive, yet this ‘Titanium’-spec car came with a six-speed automatic gearbox. The smaller engine has just 158 horsepower and 385 Newton-Metres of torque. The Endeavour is not going to win any races off a red light, if street racing is your thing then Ford India does intend to get the Mustang here later this year.
This version of the car is perfectly adapted for a city full of traffic jams. Your fellow road users will not like you, but given that their heads are at the same level as your gluteal muscles, you will never notice. Not that the bigger engine is that much more powerful, but the additional torque would help in fording (see what I did thereIJ) the occasional stream and climbing the occasional mountain trail.
That said, once you build up speed, this car can really get going. And it is not the acceleration or the power the car can generate on rougher roads that impresses you while driving. This is like driving a cruise ship through a crowd of pleasure boats, but unlike a cruise ship, this can stop very quickly indeed.
While many people rave about absolute speed, and while speed is scary because one mistake and you will likely die a horrible death, the really remarkable facet of modern automotive engineering is braking. Getting a massive two and a half tonne beast to stop quickly to avoid making human pancakes is quite an achievement, albeit one has to be either a State transport driver or crazy to be in front of one of these cars. This car commands the road, important given that many of the people who will buy this car will want a ‘commanding’ car.
Back to the script and onto the ‘Endeavour’ experience, so to speak. First things first, Ford like many other car makers has dispensed with an analog display and has fitted a screen instead. This allows you to change the display on the side to show either the temperature gauge or distance to empty or something else.
However, there is no navigation, at least in this version. And while the digital screen looks very cool and all, after driving a car with Audi’s Virtual Cockpit, your first impression is that Ford India could have done more. Then again, you only get the Virtual Cockpit in the new TT and Q7, both of which cost a lot more than the Endeavour.
And then there is the infotainment system, again very nice, much better than what the competition gives as a standard. Decent audio, fairly easy to hook up and so on and so forth. Personally, the most disappointing part of the interiors was that the plastics on the door could have felt nicer. While we are not suggesting they feel cheap and given that Ford does give a hell of a lot for the price, this is a minor quibble.
The driving on the other hand is a bit more challenging. Given that this is India and the very notion of traffic segregation is an alien one, driving something so big is not easy. Indeed, it can be very stressful because you are larger than most other traffic. But, Ford impresses here with a very decent handling. You cannot forget that you are in a leviathan, although the Endeavour is smaller than Ford’s best-selling F-150 ‘truck’, yet you can take corners with a level of surety.
Again, this does not mean you ‘attack a corner’; but you can rest assured that the Endeavour will not roll heavily if you drive decently and yes, you can take corners a bit faster than you would in competing cars because there is a level of confidence you have in the grip and brakes.
Well, with the 4x2 version, there is immediately that slight lack of confidence in taking it to the really rough stuff. The 4x4 model is equipped with a terrain response button and the ability to shift to low-range on the fly. Yet, the suspension does cushion the ride fairly well even on a rutted road and definitely better than any of the vehicles the Endeavour is up against.
Actually, it is unlikely that most Endeavours will ever leave the confines of a road, and the 4x2 model is more than enough to deal with the worst roads, the Rs3 lakh saved over and above the Rs26 lakh this model costs is money well saved.
There is one minor issue with the Endeavour though — it can’t currently be sold in Delhi due to the ban on large-capacity diesel engine cars in the NCR. However, if you don’t live in the NCR and are looking for a capable bruiser and want to stand out from the maddening crowd of white Toyota Fortuners, the Ford Endeavour is the car for you.