The Ford Everest isn’t so much a car as it is a gauntlet.
Not only has it been designed to meet the transport requirements of a wholesome young family and their bright and sparkly outdoor lives, but it’s also a leather glove made to slap Toyota across the jowls in defiant challenge.
Until now, Toyota’s Fortuner has dominated the large SUV niche with not so much as a sniff of a competitor in sight. With a five-model range in the R352 000 to R416 000 ballpark, the Fortuner has been the best rand-for-rand SUV by a country mile.
It’s rugged, built like a tank and is superb off-road, plus it is spacious and comfortable to boot. Not surprisingly, with no other SUV of this size and ability within R100 000, the Fortuner has owned 35% of the market. In fact, apart from Merc’s R-Class, there isn’t another car on South African roads that has enjoyed such a competitionless life.
Why no one else has made an estate/MPV/sportscar to take on the frankly weird German is hardly a shock — not so for the Fortuner.
The only surprising thing about Ford’s decision is why it took them so long. Just as the Fortuner is spun off Toyota’s Hilux platform, so is the Everest off the Ford Ranger/Mazda BT-50 blueprint.
The Everest, though, is bang on the money with a R324 990 to R382 990 sticker price across its own three-car line-up. And, like the Fortuner, it also offers a 4×2 model.
However, Ford has chosen some key areas to differentiate their car from the reigning champ.You might remember that a year ago the Fortuner got a whole bunch of bad publicity about an alleged tendency to get very tail happy and even roll under certain conditions on gravel roads.
Whether it was a driver, tyre or suspension issue, the blame game never produced a winner, but that little niggle has been used by Ford to promote the Everest.
While not specifically mentioning its rival’s alleged problem, Ford’s PRs couldn’t stress enough how good their car was on the dirt. And the Everest backed them up, hover-crafting comfortably over some gnarly gravel roads at speeds of 120kph.
The reason for that, says Ford, is the car’s leaf-spring rear suspension — something of an old school approach to automotive handling, but they claim it ‘handles loads better and makes the car better planted on dirt roads”.
There’s plenty that comes standard with the Everest — 16-inch alloys, roof rails, a chrome grill, ABS with electronic brakeforce distribution, dual front and side airbags, an impressive entertainment system and leather seats. Unfortunately those seats only come in a not-sogreat beigey brown colour.
The Everest also boasts the tallest and widest cargo space in this niche plus it has a foldaway third row of seats with room enough for adultsized legs (you can remove these seats altogether if you want).
All that for R27 000 cheaper than the cheapest Fortuner. There are a couple of things on the other side of the scale that lower the Everest’s altitude somewhat. For one thing, it’s only available in a 3.0-litre diesel without a V6 petrol option like Toyota offers.
As with the Ranger/BT-50 bakkie, it’s in 125kW/380Nm guise, but then again this is a peach of an engine with all that torque available from as low down as 1 800rpm. Even if there were a petrol derivative, chances are we’d be recommending the diesel anyway.
The other iffy thing is that only the top-of-the-range LTD 4×4 gets the auto box. With the five-speed auto very short in the first three ratios, the languid auto is definitely the pick. For this kind of car it’s perfect — uneventful rather than jumpy in traffic and ready to accelerate when you put your foot down.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try out the Everest’s actual off-road skills — which for many people will be the real decider in a dual against the Fortuner.
It certainly is equipped for the job though with a High Trail suspension package, steep approach and departure angles, a limited slip differential and obligatory lowrange gearing on the 4×4 models.
So it looks like the Fortuner finally has a real fight on its hands. Ford has done its homework with the Everest with regard to specs, abilities and pricing.
The Everest comes with a five-year/90 000km service plan and a four-year/120 000km warranty with 10 000km service intervals.