Sibling SUVs Deliver for Ford and Mazda

That's what the two smartly sized, well-packaged and nicely balanced vehicles will be doing to the competition once they begin rolling through dealerships this summer.

Ford has discovered that there is at best a limited market for big, lumbering, oversize sport-utility vehicles--the brute utes that exhibit the road-holding grace of a three-legged pachyderm and the thirst of a dromedary stocking up for a Saharan safari. Indeed, after bragging that it was selling more 19-foot, 4-ton Excursions than it could make, Ford earlier this month announced a 25% cut in production. Demand, it said, had weakened.

That's not likely to be the case any time soon, though, for the 2001 Ford Escape. Nor for the 2001 Mazda Tribute, if Ford's Japanese stablemate gets its marketing right. This is Mazda's first SUV since it dropped the upscale (but slow-selling) Navajo version of the Ford Explorer Sport in 1994. A year later, the two-door SUV market exploded.

Unlike those larger predecessors, the Escape and Tribute are not identical twins, though they do share most components under the skin. The external differences alone should make it easier for Mazda to move quite a few.

Though jointly developed by Ford and Mazda, with Mazda taking the lead in engineering, the two SUVs offer distinct styles and market missions. They share almost no sheet metal or glass, the instrument panels and front seats are unique to the individual brands, and ride and handling characteristics have been carefully tuned to differentiate.

Another benefit for Mazda is that the Tribute, sleeker than the Ford and styled to compete in the near-luxury, sporty-ute category, is the crisper of the two, with tighter steering, more aggressive shift points in the four-speed automatic transmission, stiffer shock absorbers and larger, 16-inch standard wheels and tires.

On a recent weekend drive around Southern California--everything from freeway commutes to a brisk romp through the foothills and canyon roads of the Cleveland National Forest--the Tribute performed with almost Teutonic precision. The 200-horsepower V-6 won't threaten the boys from BMW, but there's plenty of acceleration, a stable, comfortable highway ride and a deft suspension and steering setup that makes tight mountain curves fun to navigate.