Ford Endura review: the shape of things to come from Ford

The Endura is all right, but a tad dull and lacking a killer love-me ingredient.

Ford Endura.

We no longer refer to American car-makers as the Big Three because they’re no longer big and only two of them are in fact American. General Motors relinquished its stranglehold on the global No.1 spot more than a decade ago and now comes fourth, while Ford finishes below Hyundai and Chrysler is submerged in the Italian-led FCA group, now eighth.

Increasingly, their focus is on their home market and China, where they know they can win, at the expense of trickier territory. In particular GM has been in full flight, quitting Europe, India, Indonesia and Russia. It makes Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow look minor.

Ford remains in Europe and tentative hand-holding with Volkswagen suggests it intends to stay. Its contraction concerns product, with a decision to exit declining segments such as sedans in favour of large vehicles. In future, SUVs and utes will get 90c in every development dollar. It’s upsizing.

Ford can make a persuasive sedan but its big vehicles are more successful and command higher margins. That’s especially true of its F-Series pick-up, which has been the global bestseller for decades. An F-Series was bought every 29.3 seconds last year, says Ford, and if they were parked end-to-end it would take eight hours to fly over them.

By quirks of fate, Ford Australia is further along the curve on all this. Partly because its Falcon sedan is long gone, but also because it retains an engineering operation that develops vehicles for global sale. Among its headline successes are the Ranger ute and its SUV spin-off, the Everest.

The Australian outfit cut its teeth on our first and only home-grown SUV, the Territory. From the mid-noughties on, this uniquely local wagon rode the burgeoning SUV wave. It was ahead of its time.

I couldn’t help thinking about the Territory while driving the Endura, today’s subject, because the two sprang into existence simultaneously on opposite sides of the world. When the Blue Oval was a collection of fiefdoms, its left hand didn’t know what its right hand was doing, because the Endura (née Edge, and still badged as such in other markets) and Territory could be twins.

Of course, only the Endura has endured. And now, in its second generation, it’s part of Ford Australia’s two-pronged pitch for large SUV buyers alongside the Everest. There are a lot more buyers for this type of vehicle these days, but also a lot more choice. The Endura differentiates itself from the Everest as the more refined of the two, with a car platform rather than the frame of a pick-up. It comes solely with a four-cylinder diesel engine and five-seats. (The slightly longer Everest has seven seats and more powerful four or six-cylinder diesels, and starts about $4k higher.)

The Endura test car came in Titanium trim, the top tier of three, and with front-wheel drive. For another $4k, all-wheel drive can be added to any level. Its $63,990 price rose to $67,240 with the addition of premium Bang & Olufsen audio and rear DVD screens.

SUVs are all about practicality and the Endura delivers, on the whole. Ingress is easy through wide-opening doors, there’s plenty of passenger space and the tailgate opens high onto a wide load space that’s fairly well organised – even though the rear seats don’t quite fold flat.

Amenities such as USB and power sockets are plentiful. It’s quiet and rides well, too. For the driver, there’s well laid out switchgear, including plenty of buttons on the wheel, and super-wide A-pillars for decent forward vision marred a bit by reflections off the dash-top. The engine revs willingly and can pull up to two tonnes, apparently. There’s no stop-start system.

This diesel unit produces enough torque to generate tugging at the steering wheel so you’re aware that power goes to the front. It gets along with a certain assertiveness that’s persuasive. However, the transmission can be startled by some situations, and I hated it initially (perhaps because I’d just got out of a delightful manual Mustang). Fairness requires I moderate that view a little. But not my opposition to the satnav, which felt a chip short of a microprocessor. In contrast to the Mustang unit it’s slow, and the touchscreen buttons arrayed along the bottom of the control screen are too easy to press by mistake when aiming for something else.

From the outside, the Endura is a typical Ford design statement with little to offend but also not enough to lift it above the SUV pack. That’s how I felt about the whole car, too. It’s all right, but a tad dull and lacking a killer love-me ingredient.

In fact, I couldn’t help wishing that the Territory had survived at the Endura’s expense. With the benefit of rose-coloured 20:20 hindsight, it still impresses as the better car.

So perhaps there’s karma in a recent promotion at Ford: Aussie Trevor Worthington has been appointed to Ford’s top product job after several years in China. The Territory was one of his proudest moments before he was lured overseas. Now he’s in a position to repeat the trick.

FORD ENDURA

ENGINE: 2.0-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder (140kW/400Nm) Average fuel 6.7 litres per 100km TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, front or all-wheel drive PRICE: From $44,990