Ford Flex Finds Its Niche and Turns a Few Heads

By Marc Stern

Marc Stern

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2009 Ford Flex

Ford stepped into the unknown last year when it introduced its Flex, however, from the number that have been on the road lately, it looks like this slow-to-catch-on vehicle is going to be another winner. From some angles, it looks like a Rover, too.

If you remember the introduction of the minivan a few years ago, you probably remember that this stretched front-drive sedan with a van body created a market that took off. Look at Ford's Windstar and you can see that it's true. Based on the tried-and-true Taurus, the Windstar was one of Ford's star performers for years.

Chrysler, of course, ruled the minivan roost because it was the first to the market and then everyone jumped in just to say they offered a minivan. Some lucky imports took off, like the Honda, while others just sat in the middle of the road.

Ford, though it set the tone of the 80s with the front-drive Taurus, a later helped to keep the minivan market alive with its Windstar (still a good vehicle), in the 90s when minivan sales were tailing away, had an ace up its corporate sleeve that it didn't let on about. It hinted at mockups of the Flex in various stages of development and even focus groups kept hush-hush (sort of tough in Detroit). And, Flex variants were shown as concept cars at auto shows, still there was nothing on the radar until the start of the 2008 model year when as a TV chef likes to say Bam there it was.

At first, customers came in to see just exactly what the Flex was. They'd heard about it and wanted to see it for themselves. The first reaction usually was: Boy, this is a long vehicle, but shortly the reaction changed to this handles just like a car.

Indeed, the Flex, driven by Ford's 3.5-liter V-6 and mated to Ford's smooth-shifting six-speed automatic, was a nimble vehicle. The front-drive model that was tested was as nicely developed as any Ford new product that has appeared in some time. Because it was a front-drive vehicle, the Flex held its line through turns and corners and on the highway it is a stable platform. With 260 horsepower available at the driving wheels and 245 pounds-feet of torque, you can easily chirp the wheels in first (something that's really not advisable to do if you're driving for mileage, but is still lots of fun).

Using a fast-acting rack-and-pinion steering setup, the Flex has a relatively tight steering radius. In fact, given that the Flex is longer than it is wide, you would think the turning radius would be big, but, surprisingly, it isn't.

Flex is available in three model levels, SE, SEL and the Limited. As you'd expect the SE is the base model, front-drive, usually cloth seats, but it does include some goodies like power doorlocks, windows, steering, brakes and mirrors. It includes seating for eight two-three-three and a huge amount of space when you have all of the rear seats folded down.

Indeed, that's one of the features you'll like about the Flex. Rather than just folding flat, the seats actually fold into the floor and leave a level cargo surface that. With all three seats in place you have about 20 cubic feet of storage that about doubles when the second row int the floor and then doubles again when you drop the third row.

Interestingly, since the rear seat is about 60/40 and since the center seat is also 60/40 (meaning that it 60 percent remains in place if you need it for seating) you can actually have nearly half of the Flex available for hauling stuff and the rest available for seating passengers. It's a nice arrangement.