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My wife's current every day ride is a '99 Explorer Sport. This writer's take on the Explorer is mostly offbase. Ford was reacting to the growing fleet of Japanese mid-size SUVs, not what GM was doing. While Honda was late to the game, Toyota and Nissan were right in there with Detroit on the SUV boom. They even got sucked into the full size pickup/SUV market because it was too big a market to ignore. He is correct when he says it shifted Ford's focus from the car market, but when your biggest moneymakers are out-selling everybody else it's hard not to get tunnel vision.
BTW, when I went Explorer shopping in 1993 I couldn't get one without waiting a month and paying MSRP. I wound up with a great deal on an Isuzu Trooper, which is my bad weather commute vehicle to this day. I can't kill the #@%&! thing! It'll sit for weeks waiting to tow my boat or take me to work in a blizzard, and starts on the first turn of the key every time.
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