Sad that this had to die to bring us the Ford Explorer.
Wow I love it. They had plenty of vehicles being produced at the time. I wonder why it was shuttered in favor of the explorer instead of making a handful of them and then the explorer
Probably a bit of the board being averse to a low volume halo product, and a bit of the fact that Ford basically sold every single vehicle it made in the 80s and 90s and factory space was at a premium. Setting aside factory volume to squeeze in a 10k-per-year special model was not that attractive. Too small to dedicate its own factory to (like the Explorer), too big to not interfere with existing operations.
They also mention the heavy reliance on imported European parts and engineering, and I imagine that was a bit of a corporate negative at the time.
