Automobile Forums  Where Car Enthusiasts Go to Discuss Cars Online

Well it looks like the Ford Explorer is right on track but now the question is...what year is it going to be?? If Ford were to release the Explorer in the upcoming months it would definitely be a 2011. However, if Ford can wait till Jan. 1, then the explorer will be a 2012.

So the question is who here is waiting for the Explorer bad enough that they want it now and can't wait until next year??

The new Ford Explorer will be share a unibody platform with the 2010 Ford Taurus. Ford plans to offer front- and all-wheel-drive models and has promised to offer a 2.0L 4-cylinder EcoBoost engine. 6-cylinder options will be available as well.

I still think it looks weird....not my cup of tea.

Source: egmcartech  
Life.....It's not about how hard you can hit but how hard you can get hit and keep pushing forward, how much you can take and keep pushing forward! - Rocky Balboa

From all I can see of it, it's too bad the Isuzu Vehicross and Pontiac Aztek still aren't around so FoMoCo can give the strange critters some more competition.  Geez here's 1 more attempt to turn an ugly duck truck into something hot.  It's never going to happen, you can't turn a Mike Tyson into a Halle Berry.  
Austin Cooper

Austin.Cooper:
From all I can see of it, it's too bad the Isuzu Vehicross and Pontiac Aztek still aren't around so FoMoCo can give the strange critters some more competition.  Geez here's 1 more attempt to turn an ugly duck truck into something hot.  It's never going to happen, you can't turn a Mike Tyson into a Halle Berry.

OUCH!!! Personally I'm not too fond of this unibody. It just looks out of place on the Explorer. We'll see how the off-roaders and 4 wheelers out there think of this when it finally hits the showrooms.  
Life.....It's not about how hard you can hit but how hard you can get hit and keep pushing forward, how much you can take and keep pushing forward! - Rocky Balboa

I get the feeling FoMoCo won't lose many buyers whether they choose unibody or body-on-frame.   If anything the offbeat styling Ford has chosen this time around will probably be the key factor in what makes it or breaks it.  To me it seems that they're taking a lot of chances with those looks, since past Exploders just blended in with the rest of the gang.  
Austin Cooper

Here is a spy shot photo:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2010/03/07-2012-ford-explorer-kgp-march.jpg
[more pictures]

Still a bit to early to tell for me, but it looks fine to me.

I wonder how the unibody platform would effect towing ability? A bit, or very small amount of consumers will ever use their SUVs to tow (or what looks like the next Explorer will truly be: a CUV).