New Ford Explorer Sport: Ford's SUV gets 350bhp

The new Ford Explorer Sport

The Ford Explorer Sport has been revealed, a performance SUV to sit at the top of the Explorer range. The Explorer is not sold in the UK.

It doesn’t take an expert to see what influenced Ford when it put together the latest Explorer. It’s a dead-ringer for the products from Land Rover; almost as if Ford tucked a few bits and pieces in their coat pockets when they sold JLR to Tata in 2008 – just for a bit of inspiration.

And it’s not just the exterior that pays ‘homage’ to the Land Rover either, the Explorer even has Ford’s version of Terrain Response to deal with the slippery stuff. And now they’ve added a ‘Sport version in to the mix with a 350bhp 3.5 litre Ecoboost V6, just to make sure they’ve covered all the Land Rover bases.

The new Ford Explorer Sport gets more than just a more powerful and torquey lump under the bonnet, For has also had a play with the suspension, tweaked the steering for quicker responses, fitted bigger brakes and a new final drive. The gearbox gets flappy paddles and Ford has tweaked their Terrain Response for a sporty drive too.

Cosmetically, the new Explorer Sport gets a dose of black to make it look a bit more purposeful with lights, grill, roof rails, mirrors and wheels all moving to the dark side, as does the leather seating which also gets contrast stitching.

Despite the ‘homage’ to Land Rover – or maybe because if it – the latest version of the Ford Explorer is quite convincing. We just wonder why – in this ‘One World’ era of Ford – they don’t bring it to the UK?