- [Guys Behind Camera] Ooh!
- Long before Johnny Law got his grubby little hands on it,
it was the midsize SUV to own.
Following its debut in 1990,
it quickly rolled over the competition
and kicked off the SUV revolution.
Here's everything you need to know to get up to speed
♪ On the Ford Explorer ♪
(exciting 8-bit music)
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1990 was a tumultuous time in American history.
Milli Vanilli got caught allegedly lip-syncing,
Jonathan Lipnicki was born,
and the Ford Bronco II was being discontinued
because amongst other things, it kept rolling over.
- [Camera Man] Oh, (bleep) (bleep).
- But Ford was basically printing money
thanks for the Taurus's domination in the sedan market.
Which you can learn about right here.
(smooches)
And they wanted a new midsize SUV
that would decimate competitors
like Chevy S10 Blazer and Jeep Cherokee.
And thus, the first gen Explorer was born.
You're gonna be in Jurassic Park.
Yes you are.
Like the Bronco II,
the Explorer was derived from the Ford Ranger.
But unlike the wobbly baby Bronco,
the Explorer's U-platform was two inches wider
and significantly longer.
12.6 inches for the two-door,
and a whopping 22.5 inches for the four-door.
Yeah, I said four doors.
Four doors!
Anyway, offering a four-door version
was huge deal to customers
because it made the Explorer a practical family vehicle
while maintaining the machismo of an off-roader.
Soccer practice in the front,
off-road sports car in the back.
(engine revving)
Basically, it was the mullet of family vehicle,
and the 90s loved a mullet.
From Billy Ray Cyrus to Uncle Jesse,
everybody was sporting a mullet.
Every freaking Superman.
This modern family truckster was powered
by a four liter Cologne overhead cam V6,
good for a 160 hrsprs,
and came with your choice of a four-speed automatic
or a five-speed manual, with rear drive standard
and four-wheel drive available for big boys
who drive through puddles!
(engine revving)
The first gen was an immediate success
and sold over a million units during it's four year run.
Not only did it outsell its Chevy and Jeep rivals,
but it outsold all Ford SUVs combined.
Speaking of foreign SUVs,
the Mazda-Ford partnership of that era
meant Mazda got their own variant of the Explorer.
It only came with two doors and a hatch,
but what it lacked in doors,
it more than made up for with the badass name.
- The new Navajo from Mazda. - Navajo.
In fact, the name was so badass,
MotorTrend picked the Navajo over the Explorer
for its 1991 Truck of the Year.
Zoom zoom?
More like zoom boom, muchacho!
In your face, Ford!
But not really.
Ford wasn't even that mad,
because any vehicle can win a frigging trophy.
But only one vehicle
can get shredded by a T-Rex
in the baddest dinosaur movie ever!
You know what I'm talking about!
Land Before Time!
Oh no, a Sharp Tooth!
Oh, the Explorer comes to save the day!
The second gen Explorer dropped in 1994,
with a lot of attention focused on
increased handling and control.
A fully independent, short and long arm front suspension,
and a new rack pinion setup
replaces the recirculating-ball steering.
I'm gonna put a pin the subject of handling,
because it's gonna be a big part of the story later.
Ford offered an optional five liter V8
that was good for 210 hrsprs.
Doesn't that seem insane nowadays?
A five liter V8 with barely over 200 horsepower?
Now we have three cylinder turbos with 250 horsepower.
Sales were astronomical!
And the blue oval sold over 400,000 units a year.
- Oh yes, that's nice.
- Ford also fancified the Explorer and sold it
as the Mercury Mountaineer to the people
who thought they were too good
for the high trim level Eddie Bauer Explorer
and all it's tan two-tone glory.
Ford harnessed the power of branding
to sell over 1.5 million Eddie Bauer Fords
across their lineup.
And it's considered
one of the best brand collabs of all time.
Second only to Linkin Park and Jay-Z.
But if you really wanted to blow your dough
on a second gen, the only real option,
was to go full Saleen.
Yeah, even Saleen, who was known
for adding go-go juice to Mustangs,
(engine revving)
got in on the Explorer action with the XP8.
Cool!
The added a supercharger, aero, Recaro seats,
and a few options like a carbon fiber hood
and four-piston vented brakes.
The Saleen was only supposed to come with a V8,
which puts out 286 hrsprs.
(tire screeching)
But one time, Ford accidentally sent them
a shipment of V6 two-wheel drive Explorers.
And instead of sending them back,
Saleen said "Screw it.
"Let's supercharge these baby boys
"and sell them as XP6s."
Saleen was making fast SUVs way before
the Porshe Macan, the Jeep Trackhawk, the BMW X6.
Now, where is that pin I stuck earlier?
Oh, there it is. (glass shattering)
We were talking about how Ford wanted to improve handling,
and not just because they wanted to dominate Autocross.
Okay, 'cause they didn't.
That wasn't in the plan.
As I had mentioned before,
the Bronco II was so prone to rollovers,
that consumer reports warned against buying them.
Apparently, this was news to Ford,
who was crapping brown ovals because much of the first gen
and early second gen Explorers
shared the Bronco II's handling characteristics.
Project Manager Roger Simpson
was tasked with resolving the issue
just months before the Explorer's release.
His engineers tested the vehicle
at Ford's Arizona Proving Grounds
and submitted the following report.
"Upon further examination
"of the Explorer's high speed stability,
"we have determined the vehicle sucks."
Roger knew the only way to truly improve the handling
was to add two inches to the wheel track,
thus making the vehicle stance wider.
But they couldn't do that
without creating a whole new platform,
which would cost millions and millions of dollars.
So Ford did the next best thing.
They recommended the tires be partially deflated to 26 PSI
and the suspension be fitted with softer springs.
- Don't use a size and type of tire
other than that originally provide by Ford.
Otherwise, the safety and performance of your Explorer
can be adversely affected.
- That penny-pinching solution worked great.
Oh, wait.
No, sorry.
Sometimes I get the word "great" mixed up
with the descriptive coupling of
super, omega, ultra terrible!
Ford's lame band-aid fixes
didn't stop the Explorers from rolling over
like a son-of-a-(bleep).
(banging)
And this is where things get heavy.
The poor handling resulted in hundreds of fatalities,
and thousands of injuries.
And while it was easy to throw stones at the Explorer,
the bottom line is SUVs of that era all suffered
from lack of rollover stability.
But since American consumers were going nuts
over the high sales margin SUVs,
manufacturers turned a blind eye to the problem.
Oh, your things roll over?
Nah.
A fact that is best show in this Drake meme.
By the mid to late 90s,
Ford changed the suspension set up in the second gen
and were designing a wider, more stable third gen.
But the problem with selling 400,000 Explorers a year,
was that there were over a million
poorly designed vehicles on the road.
(tire screeching)
And as the death toll rose, and lawsuits were filed,
Ford realized they needed a scapegoat.
And this is when Firestone came into play.
Firestone had been supplying tires to Ford
since the Model T.
But nearly a hundred years of partnership
didn't stop the automotive giant
from driving right over them with a bus.
You see, Firestone made the steel-belted radials
for the Explorer.
And there had been reports that in hotter climates,
like in Arizona or SoCal,
tread separation had been linked
to some of the rollover fatalities.
Now since Firestone was already in hot water
for accidents from tire separation,
Ford figured they would just blame
all the rollovers on Firestone.
- This is a tire issue, and only a tire issue.
- This lead to a major legal throwdown
between the two former friendly companies.
In fact, there were even
Congressional hearings on the matter.
And you guys know how hard it is
to get Congress to go to work.
Unfortunately for Firestone,
they came ill-prepared for the showdown in DC,
as Ford had the backing of hundreds of lobbyists
and sympathetic politicians.
Ford even enlisted the help of Car and Driver
to make a propaganda video,
showing how stable the Explorer is,
in spite of the Firestone tires.
- [Announcer] As far as the charges
that the Explorer is unstable,
we've seen just the opposite.
- The result of the hearings and various trials
nearly bankrupt Firestone,
costing the company almost 1.7 billion dollars.
And Ford didn't come out smelling like roses either.
They lost half a billion dollars.
All because they didn't want to scrap production
and add two inches of cushion to the corner pushing.
The saga also lead lawmakers to pass
the Transportation Recall Enhancement
Accountability and Documentation Act in 2000.
Known as the Tread Act, what a fun coincidence,
the legislation was designed to protect consumers
from future safety oversights by auto manufacturers.
In 2001, Ford launched the third gen explorer.
It was completely redesigned from the ground up
and was no longer derived from the Ranger.
It was wider and longer and even offered a third row seat.
By this point, most manufacturers
were making comparable SUVs,
and there's really nothing of note to say about the Explorer
other than they did away with the two-door model
and the manual transmission option.
You know what?
I'm just gonna say it.
For the next 11 years,
the Ford Explorer was a pretty basic (bleep).
(gasps)
This is why I love it.
He gives the people what they need to hear.
All right, brother.
But in 2012, something glorious happened.
The fifth gen, which was based on the Taurus unibody,
go the 365 hrspr SHO EcoBoost powerplant,
which was available to consumers in the Sport trimline,
and available to cops in the
"respect my authoritah" trimline.
Ford recently revealed the new 2020 sixth gen Explorer,
and auto journalists are freaking out about the seats?
Cool, comfy seats.
But there is actually a lot to be excited for.
For starters, there's finally gonna be a hybrid Explorer.
Which is great because it can offset the emissions
from the new tire burning ST trim.
Ford also revealed the all new Police Interceptor.
Despite being a large crossover SUV,
the popo mobile is actually the fastest cop car in America.
The three liter V6 all-wheel drive Interceptor
is over a second faster from zero to 100
than the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi (engine revving)
found in the two-wheel drive Dodge Charger.
Which means people like Nolan
are gonna be lining up at police auctions
to get their hands on all that cheap government performance.
- [Guys Behind Camera] Ooh!
- Thanks for watching Donut Media.
If you guys didn't watch it,
I would just be some weirdo hanging out with my friends,
talking about cars in my bedroom.
Yo, we got a ton of new shows coming up this summer.
And make sure you don't miss any.
Hit that Subscribe button.
Actually, Colby, let them know
what the Subscribe button looks like 'cause,
oh, you can actually just click this guy right here.
This circle is a Subscribe button.
If you want to learn more about cop cars,
check out this episode of my other show,
Bumper to Bumper.
You want to learn how to get away from the cops,
check out this episode of Nolan's show.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @jamespumphrey.
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