The Ford Motor Company may be down these days, but it's clearly not out. Witness the very handsome Explorer America concept, set for an unveiling at next week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Certainly presaging a future iteration of the company's mid-size SUV, the Explorer America utilizes a unitized structure (the current model employs body-on-frame architecture) with minivan-style sliding side doors and a B-pillarless design. The one-piece glass roof is a bit too audacious for production, but the overall shape is quite appealing — strong but not anti-social.
Behind that big three-bar grille, the Explorer America boasts Ford's new EcoBoost technology, which uses turbocharging and gasoline direct-injection to hike the output of either a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine (275 horsepower) or a 3.5-liter V-6 (340 horsepower), while offering fuel savings of between 20 and 30 percent.
Inside, ballistic fabric contrasts chocolate-brown hide from leathercrafter Mullholland Brothers. We love the dome-shaped compass and navigation unit on the dash top. Inspired by an old-fashioned yachting compass, it uses a holographic display to show real-time global positioning, 3D terrain mapping, traffic visualization, and weather forecasting from live Dopplers.
More photos of the Explorer America after the break, courtesy of Ford.
