Ford Everest

The story

The Everest is a mid-size pickup that traded its bed for a 3-row wagon body, and it fixes the part that usually spoils that recipe: the rear leaf springs give way to coils on a live axle located by a Watt's link. The coils let it cover long highway miles with the calm of a big touring wagon instead of the jiggle of a work truck. The best versions pair a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6, making 247 hp and 443 lb-ft, with a 10-speed automatic and a transfer case that can shuffle torque automatically on a slick road or lock both axles together for mud and low-range crawling.

Developed in Australia and built in Thailand, the current generation arrived in 2022 and quickly became the benchmark of its class, with the only V6 among 4-cylinder rivals and underbody protection, a rear locker and recovery hooks on every version. It is not flawless: the interior is beginning to date, and Toyota still owns the reputation for running forever. In the United States, where Ford sells the Bronco and Explorer instead, it is known mostly from photographs and the odd test vehicle spotted around Detroit.