Months ago, on a bitterly cold December morning, Ford vice-president of product creation Phil Martens and his team showed us the future of station wagons.
Or at least one important part of that future: the Ford Freestyle.
When it goes on sale this fall, the Freestyle enters a growing segment of vehicles that are part sport-utility vehicle and part station wagon, typified today by such "crossovers" as the Toyota Highlander, Honda Pilot, Buick Rendezvous and Chrysler Pacifica.
Martens, the 44-year-old soft-spoken and prematurely grey boss of all new vehicles at Ford in North America, carefully took his digs at the competition that day.
Calling the Freestyle "a medium crossover with the right package and the right power train," he suggested that unlike the Pacifica, Rendezvous and others, Ford's entry in this growing segment "was purposely built" to be a crossover.
The Volvo-based Freestyle has an edge because it looks like an SUV but achieves much better fuel economy while delivering all the advantages of a minivan in terms of packaging and people-moving.
And its styling doesn't conjure up images of station wagons from the 1950s and '60s.
On paper, there isn't much to separate the Freestyle from rivals that have been in dealer showrooms for not months, but years. Most seat up to seven or eight people (the five-passenger Nissan Murano being a notable exception).
Every one is available with all-wheel drive. All are powered by V-6 engines. All carry a lot of stuff. And all try to disguise their station wagon-like abilities under sheet metal shapes that stray into SUV territory, albeit without too heavy a dose of machismo.
The Freestyle, of course, will be the newest of the lot this fall. But that doesn't mean the competition has been sleeping at the wheel.
Toyota, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and DaimlerChrysler have seen the Freestyle. Indeed, when Ford took the wraps off in January at the Detroit auto show, engineers, product planners and marketing types from all the big manufacturers crawled all over it.
All of them said then, and agree now, that the biggest wild card in Ford's entry is its decision to go with just one engine choice. It is an updated version of Ford's 3.0-litre Duratec V-6, rated at just 200 hp and mated to a ZF-Batavia continuously variable transmission (CVT).
Of all the key players in this segment, the Murano is the only other vehicle with a CVT, but it doesn't seat seven or eight people.
Nissan's crossover has been on the market for more than a year and a half, and Nissan Canada president Brad Bradshaw says it is still very difficult to sell buyers on the fuel economy and performance advantages of a CTV.
The advantages are quite real, though. A CVT does away with the "step" gear ratios of a traditional transmission, replacing them with an essentially infinite range of ratios. It does this by doing away with gears entirely.
No matter the speed, a CVT is always searching for the optimal torque, or twisting force, to deliver it. So it is very efficient in terms of driving responses.
On top of that, Martens insists Ford's CVT works especially well with the optional Haldex coupler all-wheel-drive system. This is the same AWD system used on Volvo's well-accepted XC 90.
Under normal driving conditions, the Freestyle is 98-per-cent front-wheel drive. If necessary, though, up to 40 per cent of the torque can be routed to the rear axle if the front wheels begin to slip. Obviously, the Freestyle is not intended for serious off-roading.
On the other hand, Martens and other Ford officials say the Freestyle will get better fuel economy than its rivals -- and it will certainly sip less fuel than heavy, frame-based off-roaders.
Not only that, the newly-named, all-aluminum Duratec 30 V-6 (200 hp/200 lb-ft of torque) has undergone a raft of improvements. Martens says it's smoother and more responsive and meets United States and Canadian Tier II, Bin 5 emissions standards.
What does that mean? In California, Tier II, Bin 5 is equivalent to the Low Emission Vehicle II standard. To put that in perspective, this standard rates an 8 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's guide to green vehicles. Typically, a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle rates 9 or 10; an 8 for a seven-passenger vehicle is good.
So are the Freestyle's underpinnings. They come from Volvo's P2 platform, which has spawned the Volvo S80, S60, XC90 and V70 -- all vehicles praised for their dynamics. I've driven prototype versions of the Freestyle and they handled and accelerated quite well, leading me to expect production models to be more than competitive.
Styling: On Ford's internal scale of one to 10, with one a sedan and 10 a SUV, marketing manager Amy Marentic says the Freestyle "ended up at a six or seven."
Size/packaging: The Freestyle is quite big. So there is lots of space for people and gear, especially behind the second row of seats where the Freestyle has about 50 per cent more room than the Pacifica.
Second-row seats have 254 mm of travel, the third row will hold real adults and both rows boast theatre or tiered seating for better forward visibility.
Interior materials are on par with others in the segment, the instruments and switch gear makes sense.
Safety: The Freestyle will be available with front side-impact airbags combined with Ford's Safety Canopy that covers all three rows. Anti-lock braking will be standard.
Expect well-equipped versions to start in the mid-$30,000s, ranging into the low-$40,000s.
2005 Ford Freestyle*
Base Price (estimated): $38,000 to $42,000
Engine: 3.0-litre, V-6 (DOHC)
Output: 231 hp at 6,800 rpm; 200 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm
Fuel economy (litres/100 km): N/A
Drive system: All-wheel drive
Wheelbase: 2,867 mm
Length: 5,075 mm
Width: 1,760 mm
Height: 1,649 mm
Max. towing capacity: 910 kg
