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On Wheels by Brooks Peterson Saturday, September 2, 2000
New Ford Windstar can hold its ownLarge interior, extras combine with steadiness to offer viable alternative to other SUVs Greetings, earthlings: The mother ship has landed. We have not yet perfected the modifications to our teleportation technology that would allow us to beam aboard carbon-based life forms of your - can we be candid? - rather primitive configuration.
Delayed entry to market It's an intriguing study, really. In our obsession with big ungainly sport utes with knobby tires and fender flares and brush-buster bumpers, we have given short shrift to the phenomenon that preceded SUV madness. I refer, of course, to minivan mania. Now, granted, our fickleness is one of the things that makes life interesting, but I suggest that we should be giving the minivan . . . well, something more than short shrift. Medium shrift, at the very least. Ford, like General Motors, was a bit tardy in making its way to the minivan mainstream. The two giants both started off with truck-based rear-drive minivans that were roomy and rugged, but which drove like . . . trucks. What would you expect? Only after the magnitude of the stamped to Chrysler's front-drive, car-like minis became obvious did the other guys take the hint. And while Chrysler (er, DaimlerChrysler) remains dominant, the mini-come-latelies are closing the gap. Seating potential Consider: The Windstar now offers the option of sliding rear doors on both sides of the vehicle. And, if you are so disposed, you can go the whole route and specify remote-activated power door activation. If you do that, of course, you will have to figure out that key fob affair. After activating the wrong door more than once, I found myself wishing FoMoCo had skipped the picto-graphics and just put a big L and R next to the appropriate buttons. Once you have mastered all that, all that's left is to clamber in - a simple enough chore, though not quite as easy as falling into a conventional sedan or wagon - and savor the sheer vastness of the interior. Our tester, a top-of-the-line SEL, featured posh captain's chairs in the first and second rows, with a bench in back, all nicely trimmed in leather. According to Ford, this adds up to seven-passenger capacity. I, however, would make so bold as to suggest that the three life forms assigned to that rear seat be relatively diminutive. (Actually, I'd ditch the second-row captain's seats and replace 'em with a bench: This is, after all, a utilitarian vehicle . . . isn't it?) Once you're all settled in, with your badminton racquets or croquet mallets appropriately stowed (let's give the soccer-mom cliché a rest, whaddaya say?), you are prepared to enter the Driving Zone. Steady and safe And, all things considered, it isn't all that bad. I know, hero drivers - and those who, like your obedient servant here, aspire to be hero drivers - are always dumping on minivans because they don't drive like Lotus Esprits and/or Ferrari Testarossas. But what, after all, do we expect? A minivan is essentially a great big box on wheels, and while steps can be taken to render its over-the-road comportment predictable and civilized, it's never going to be an entertaining ride. (It will, however, be a safe one in this case: The Windstar has shone in crash-test situations.) But there are pluses, too: It has been my experience that minivans are among the steadiest vehicles out there when it comes to mushing through sloppy weather. More than once, I've motored serenely past hot-shoe vehicles that had whooshed by me before the skies opened up. These machines will track. Beyond that, some of them (FoMoCo's Mercury Villager and its twin, the Nissan Quest come to mind) actually deliver fairly nimble handling. Smooth acceleration I'm afraid no one's going to characterize the Windstar as light on its feet, however. Competent, yes; but its sheer size and bulk discourage hairpin heroics in this particular vehicle. Wouldn't be prudent. The brakes proved reassuringly capable in one almost-panic stop, thanks in part (I suspect) to the standard four-wheel anti-lock. However, I'd be happier if we got discs front and rear rather than the present disc-drum arrangement. The optional 200-horsepower 3.8-liter V-6, as you would imagine, has to work for its living; but given the task before it, the engine gets the job done with commendable smoothness. Only when you're really flogging it does a certain coarseness filter through . . . but then what are you doing flogging a minivan, anyway? That's what the Boxster is for, pal. Viable alternative Other delights included the optional Reverse Sensing System, a gadget that beeps if you are in peril of backing into someone or something. On our tester, it seemed a bit erratic, but in a vehicle this big, every bit helps. We did not benefit from the blessing of the optional power-adjustable brake and throttle pedals, but can imagine they will find a public - particularly in households in which petite persons cohabit with seriously large ones. Time with the Windstar, then, drives home the old argument all over again: Those of you who are shelling all those bucks for SUVs whose off-road capabilities you will never, ever explore might do well to eyeball a minivan and/or station wagon before going the mountain-man route. Logic will never dictate our automotive buying decisions, but it ought to play some sort of role . . . right, Spock? 
© 2000 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved. |
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