Ford's Excursion Is Hard To Ignore -- Biggest Suv Hugs, And Hogs, The Road With Assuredness

A whole week in the new Excursion, and not once did I have to pick Miatas out of its grille or flee a mob of torch-bearing environmentalists.

Yes, Ford's new sport-utility is as big as it gets, several inches longer, taller and wider than General Motors' Suburban. There are cupholders for 10 (six of them within the driver's reach). There are three rows of seats, each row able to comfortably hold three grown men.

Yes, your first $60 fill-up is sobering. And yes, the Excursion is problematically huge for Seattle: It darkens 126 square feet of planet, approaching the size of a Belltown condo. Still, no one batted an eye at its bulk, not even on the Eastside, a place where they appreciate square footage.

If the Excursion had even a hint of the Lincoln Navigator's let-them-drive-Hyundais arrogance, it would be outlandish and awful, deserving of the hysteria that followed its debut. But Ford did a smart thing: It made a truck that works for a living, one more likely to appear in the driveway as the neighbor's castle is built than after it is finished. In the proper setting - east of the Cascades, perhaps, surrounded by machinery of similar size - the Excursion is all but invisible.

The Excursion takes its chassis and no-nonsense looks straight from the Ford Super Duty pickup, and its square-shouldered interior is far plainer than that in the curvier, cushier Expedition. The stout suspension makes the Excursion's ride far firmer than a Toyota Land Cruiser's. There's no set-it-and-forget-it four-wheel-drive. In short, the Excursion lacks the carlike qualities that put Expeditions and Tahoes in every other suburban garage. A good thing, too: It won't fit in many of them.

It's worth noting that, while the Excursion pushes the envelope for passenger vehicles, there are full-size vans and pickups that are quite a bit larger - though few of them carry around the poundage the Excursion does. The beefiest versions crowd 7,500 pounds, about three Honda Civics.

Ford says it envisions the Excursion as a crew transport or a tow vehicle, not a city runabout. Out of its rural element, the Excursion is downright clumsy.

In Seattle, I tried very hard to get the Excursion stuck. I wasn't able to find a parking garage with clearance low enough to scrape its 80-inch roof, but I know they're out there. (I picture a carload of beefy friends parking for a meal at a downtown restaurant and the springs rebounding as they exit, wedging the Excursion neatly between garage roof and floor.)

Narrow streets on Capitol Hill required a stop to fold in the foot-wide side mirrors. I'd park at the far end of almost every lot,

not just because of the Excursion's wide-but-not-outlandish turning circle, but also because its nose is so tall that the front ends of other cars disappear, making parking a creep-till-you-bump affair. One drive-through required that I back up over a curb to make a turn.

But we learn quickly, once payment book is in hand, and an owner of six months should be able to kiss the back wall of the garage with ease. Ford has done its part to accelerate the learning curve: Those elephantine side mirrors have smaller, wide-angle mirrors beneath them to expose lil' dinky Hondas trailing in your wake, and reverse-gear sonar beeps faster and faster the closer you come to backing over the neighbor's recycling bin. Power-adjustable gas and brake pedals let short people share that commanding view without the deadly peril of a too-close air bag. The running boards are usefully wide, and they're standard.

It also helps that the Excursion handles with such assurance; it took I-5 onramps with far more poise than the last Suburban I drove and in general felt more agile as well. (To be fair, there's a redesigned, slightly smaller Suburban, based on GM's exceptional new full-size pickups, on the way.) The Excursion's brakes are less inspiring; this much mass needs much more brake.

The standard engine in four-wheel-drive Excursions is a 310-horsepower V-10, but our tester carried an optional turbodiesel V-8. Though it sounds like the garbage truck and generates a middling 235 horsepower, it offers a stump-pulling 500 pounds of torque. Simply put, this engine doesn't have to try very hard to move this four-ton beast around. One benefit of that is reasonable mileage; I got 16 mpg around town, about what most compact sport-utilities return. You'll be lucky to see double digits, though, in the V-10. The EPA doesn't rate trucks this big, and Ford declines to offer specifics. (Ford, with a straight face, has suggested that driving one Excursion is cheaper than taking two full-size sedans.)

I liked the Excursion. It's an honest truck that does its intended job remarkably well, and those who paint it as marauding Wheels of Death need something productive to do. But then I see it parked nose to nose with a Camry or a Neon, the kinds of cars my family and friends drive, and I can't help but wince.

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Ford Excursion.

Base price: XLT 2WD, $34,135; Limited 4WD turbodiesel, $44,885. EPA mileage: Unrated. Turbodiesel tester returned 18 mpg. Finance note: Assuming a 10-percent down payment and a five-year new-car loan at the prevailing national rate of 8.26 percent, monthly payments for would be $824.12.