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<\/p>\n<\/div>When I get a sports car to test, I want to give my motorhead friends a neck-wringing handling demo. When I get a pickup, I want to ford the Manistee and climb Sleeping Bear Dune. When I get a Ford SUV, I want to be in fifth grade again doing show-and-tell.<\/p>\n
Check out the kick-open rear hatch. And the self-parking feature. And the hands-free calling. And rear traffic alert. Cool, right?<\/p>\n
Well, Ford is back with its latest, 2017 Escape \u2014 and it\u2019s time for more show-and-tell.<\/p>\n
The Escape is where I always start in the compact crossover shopping department. Now the most popular aisle in the store, small SUVs have leapfrogged sedans as the vehicle of choice thanks to their high ride, roomy backseats and hatchback utility. Add to that Escape\u2019s sporty platform, car-like styling, buffet of engine choices and toy store of tech-tosterone and you have the segment standard.<\/p>\n
But in this constant crossover audition, you\u2019ve got to scrap to stay on top as Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Toyota have all presented new products since Escape\u2019s last act.<\/p>\n
Does the new Ford keep its crown?<\/p>\n
My little sister is all grown up and in the market for a family ute. I made the 400-mile road trip to Charleston, West Virginia, to get her opinion (mine too).<\/p>\n
Escape show-and-tell actually begins with a smartphone \u2014 not the car. Everything runs on apps these days, including automobiles. Download FordPass from the Google Play store (simple) and you can fire the crossover right up. From anywhere. It\u2019s a handy tool to have in winter when you land at, say, Metro Airport and your frigid vehicle is more suitable for freezing meat than hosting a human being.<\/p>\n
A $30K car that remote-starts? Impressive first impression. It gets better.<\/p>\n
Okay, sis, let\u2019s do the exterior walkaround. It\u2019s a handsome little devil. The third-generation 2013 Escape was one of the first crossovers to think outside the boxy shape and adopt a more car-like, streamlined figure. But as others followed, the Escape\u2019s mug \u2014 apparently inspired by a hotel air-conditioning unit \u2014 lacked character. Ford\u2019s mid-cycle refresh has replaced all sheet model forward of the A-pillar to finally give it the handsome, happy grille it deserves.<\/p>\n
We climbed in and hooked up Android Auto. Ford and Toyota have lagged rivals Chevy, Honda and Hyundai in introducing apps that let your familiar smartphone take over the console \u2014 a rare misstep for the tech-savvy Blue Oval. By introducing Android and Apple Car Play in its highest-volume vehicle, Ford goes a long way to catching up with the pack.<\/p>\n
Ford\u2019s whiz-bang cred was quickly redeemed with a self-park demo. Futurists are wowed these days with \u201cself-driving\u201d features like auto-lane changing, lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control. But for my money there is no better demonstration of auto-ficial intelligence than self-park \u2014 a feature the Escape pioneered, and that has even luxury manufacturers playing catch up.<\/p>\n
My sister tapped the self-park icon, cruised by an empty space, then sat back as the Ford detected the opening and, well, took over.<\/p>\n
Steering wheel possessed by unseen hands, the CUV cut backward, slotting the car perfectly into place. So bewitched was sis that she almost forgot to brake before slamming into the parked car behind us. Self-park is only semi-autonomous after all.<\/p>\n
Show-and-tell me more. Well, of course. Return to the vehicle and it will (semi-autonomously) extract itself, too. In the tight confines of cities from Charleston to Detroit, the feature is a ding-saver (if only every parking-challenged idiot had the same ability).<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t speak to the MyFord Touch infotainment issues that dogged previous Escapes<\/a>and drove owners to blow shotgun holes in their center consoles. So infamous was the system that Ford has put MyFord Touch in the witness protection program, never to be heard from again. The Escape boasts a SYNC infotainment update called SYNC 3, which gave us no trouble.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been 15 years since the iPod revolutionized gadget design \u2014 but I still enjoy the Escape\u2019s Pod-like infotainment controls which power the console along with attractive climate control graphics. But if the old Escape console looked like an Apple device, it forgot that we need a place to put them. The new Escape happily lifts the control stack \u2014 opening up a needed cubby for phones, money, French fries (whatever flips your switch) to go with a bottomless center storage bin that will shame many larger, midsize crossovers.<\/p>\n Ford lives by more than tech alone.<\/p>\n This is a company full of race jocks who take pride in engine development \u2014 and the Escape is in a different class with more engines choices than I have socks<\/p>\n You can have any engine in a Honda CR-V<\/a> as long as it\u2019s a 185-horse, 2.4-liter inline-4. Ford offers a base 2.5-liter 4; a 1.5-liter turbo-4; a 2.0-liter turbo-4; and the 5.0-liter, flat-plane crank, 526-horsepower V-8 that comes in the Mustang GT350<\/a> (just kidding about that last one \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t hurt to dream).<\/p>\n