REVIEW: Ford Territory passes the cello test

Ford is on the offensive in SA after a quiet few years. It builds the popular Ranger bakkie outside Pretoria, which is doing a good job of hoovering up the leisure bakkie market, and has plugged some holes it had in its range — most importantly the ever-important mid-size crossover SUV segment.

Having had no real offering since the run-out of the Kuga, Ford opted to reprise a nameplate that separates the ou ballies from the laaitjies in the motor industry reporting game — the Territory. The Territory’s story reflects the changing motor industry. The original car from 2004 was a large family SUV developed in Australia. It was a good car, and the ST version was a hilariously quick, turbocharged blue-collar zap sign to the Mercedes-AMGs of the world, making it a legitimate fast Ford.

The new Territory is built in China, principally for that market, and is manufactured by Ford’s partner there, JMC.

It’s important to put to bed the idea that the Territory isn’t a proper Ford. In much the same way that Ford Europe developed the Fiesta and the Ka for European drivers rather than Americans, the Territory is a market-specific assault on a critical segment and represents entirely rational practice from a global brand.

The important question is whether this works for SA drivers and families. To ensure that it does, Ford made a good decision to eschew the 1.5l version altogether and fit the more powerful, 138kW 1.8l turbocharged Ecoboost motor to all trim levels in the local range.

More importantly, 328Nm of torque is deftly handled by a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and feels usefully available in the real world. The motor’s peak torque drops off after about 3,000rpm and can feel a little asthmatic in a sprint, but this is not unlike complaining about the boot space in an F1 car, which is to rather miss the point.

This most competitive segment of the market, dominated by other Chinese offerings, the perennially excellent Toyota RAV4, Volkswagen Tiguan and Kia Sportage, is all about families and Ford has clearly focused hard on that. That focus means the Territory aces on tech, safety and comfort, the trade-off at the price point being the fact that all versions of the car are front-wheel-drive and that the handling is more comfortable than it is apex-bothering.

Most families will appreciate this, because as a result of the SUV shape but the lack of all-wheel drive hardware such as driveshafts and rear differentials, for a reasonably compact family car footprint, the rear legroom is like nothing I’ve seen elsewhere. It is vastly spacious and older children and adults lose nothing by taking a rear pew. The car also passes the cello test (the boot swallows it easily), which pleases my middle daughter immensely.

The R721,000 top-of-the-range Titanium model comes with a vast glass “moonroof”, which is nice and airy when it’s cloudy or raining, but can be sealed altogether when the sun is out. A neat trick is that on a hot day you can press and hold the open button on the key fob and it opens all the windows and the roof, allowing the car to cool quickly if it’s been in the sun.

For the driver, Titanium model comes with just about everything you might need and more besides, including a rear-view camera, lane-keep assistance, blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control and automatic braking. A very large Mercedes-Benz-style touchscreen controls most functionality, the only gripe being that you need to go through several menus to get out of CarPlay or Android Auto find the air recycle button, which is often required on SA roads. There are front, side and curtain airbags for all precious cargo and the boot lid is electrically operated.

On the road, the Territory is quiet and assured. The motor is dead quiet and wind noise at the speed limit is well damped. The steering is a mite vague, I would prefer more rubber and less wheel for dirt roads (the Titanium comes with 19” wheels), and the brakes are grabby and take some getting used to. However, these are small issues in a package that offers a great deal as a family runaround and road-trip car.

The Territory will probably face the market as though it is a new nameplate, so long has it been since the last incarnation was offered to SA drivers. It may struggle to break through in a segment that is divvied up between bargain Chinese offerings and the copper-bottomed excellence of the VW and the Toyota. That seems like a pity — it really should be on the test-drive list for those in the market for a family crossover. It is a clear market leader on some measures and the trade-offs seem reasonable.