Short Take Road Test
By the year 2045, family buses such as the '07 Ford Expedition EL will have evolved into vehicles such as the TTA Colonial III, according to our dog-eared copy of the Terran Trade Authority Handbook: Spacecraft 2000 to 2100 AD by Stewart Cowley.
If you think the Expedition EL is a big sucker, just wait till the Colonial III slides into showrooms. The book, which bills itself as "the comprehensive, all-color guide to the major spacecraft of the last century," puts the TTA Colonial III's cabin volume at 750,000 cubic dekameters, or 26.5 billion cubic feet. Finally, a vehicle you can toss a stroller into unfolded — and with a bit of extra knickknack room for, say, Las Vegas.
Actually, the Expedition EL, with its 131 cubic feet of cargo space behind the front seats, represents a rare downsizing for Ford and its line of steadily waxing sport-utes. The Excursion was yanked from the lineup in 2005, and the Expedition EL, an Expedition stretched by a foot at the wheelbase (and by $2650 to $4450 at its base price, depending on trim), is its replacement.
Yet the EL is smaller than the Excursion — at the wheelbase by 6.1 inches and bumper to bumper by 5.1 inches, the better to weave around apoplectic environmentalists. The EPA quotes no mileage figures for the EL, owing to its over-8500-pound gross weight rating. Ours ran 14 miles on a gallon.
There's still full-platoon seating in the EL, for eight with front buckets, nine with a no-cost front bench, or seven with the optional second-row captain's chairs (the Colonial III will carry 28, plus 1200 "mobile Mechteck labor units" designed to resemble Little Leaguers). Ford claims even the EL's 60/40-split third row is packaged for six-footers, and we found no reason to argue with that. The '07 Expedition's cockpit seems combed and spit-polished with dabs of fine chrome trim and tight-fitting plastic panels where pretend wood meets counterfeit alloys. GM's biggest utes still have the lead with their new "luxtastic" interiors, but the Expedition EL runs right into the General's slipstream.
No one could accuse the iron-block 5.4-liter V-8 and six-speed automatic transmission of getting off easily, what with 6280 pounds to tote in our EL Limited 4x4. The run to 60 mph is 9.0 seconds with all 300 horsepower and 365 pound-feet of torque working hard. The EL's 8750-pound towing capacity (9000 with two-wheel drive) is down on a Suburban's, which maxes at 9700. Still, it's probably not worth waiting 38 years for the McKinley Ion Drive Model C2 to be invented.
The Expedition's rear multilink suspension helps soften impacts and keeps the body stable and on course around freeway off-ramps. But even a tangle of control arms can't lighten the EL's heavy step or enliven its labored acceleration. The ride is commendably quiet, but parking the EL takes all the finesse of guiding the Colonial III between Saturn and its rings.
Buying an EL without its $675 reverse distance alarm would be like ordering the Colonial III without its Type 170 Meteorite Deflector Shield. Only a space cadet would do that.
