Ford captured lightning in a bottle with its Explorer SUV in the 1990s. Eventually, everyone would want an SUV, regardless if they never came close to using its capabilities. The Explorer was so successful that Ford let it guide its product naming schemes, a move that almost resulted in the Escape having a much dumber name.
The Ford Escape was a big deal when it launched in 2000. The Explorer, which launched in 1990, and the Expedition, which launched in 1996, brought Ford a fortune. But Ford saw a little bit of an issue, and it’s that it left a small-SUV-sized gap in the market. Much of the automotive world had been experimenting with a remix on the SUV known as the crossover. These vehicles, which included the Honda CR-V, the Toyota RAV4, and the Subaru Forester, had butch looks and all-wheel-drive systems, but were based on car platforms. They rode and drove like cars, but looked like SUVs.
Ford turned to Mazda, and together, they developed the Escape and the Tribute, a pair of crossover SUVs that had the right look, but left the locking differentials and body-on-frame construction to bigger rides. The target customer was someone who lived an active lifestyle, but wasn’t really interested in doing much off-roading.
But how did Ford land on the name “Escape?” As it turns out, things could have been way weirder.
As Automotive News reports, Ford wanted all of its SUVs to have a uniform naming scheme. The Explorer was massively popular, so every Ford SUV would start with “Ex-.” Leo Williams III, then a marketing manager at Ford, was tasked with naming Ford’s future SUVs.
Apparently, naming the Expedition wasn’t that hard since Williams was a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. Ford’s full-size SUV was supposed to go anywhere and do anything, just like a Marine. The Marines call that “expeditionary,” Williams said, so there you go. Williams called Ford’s then-new SUV the Expedition.
Automotive News wrote that naming the Excursion was harder as the team wanted a name that makes people think about how rugged and work-ready it is. After about 11 or 12 names, Excursion was chosen.
But the Escape? Williams remained dedicated to naming every Ford SUV with an “Ex-” prefix, even if that called for creative spelling. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. From Automotive News:
“I actually wanted to take a risk and name it ‘E-X-C-A-P-E,’” Williams explained in an interview Ford released on its media website. ”This was around the time hip-hop was becoming popular and automotive names were getting more creative. But my bosses got bogged down in the fact that it wasn’t a real word they could find in a dictionary. They liked the concept of being able to ‘escape’ the everyday world, so we kept the name but lost the unique spelling.”
Ford eventually gave up on the “EX all the things!” idea. We all remember the EcoSport, right? Oh, and that’s pronounced “Echo Sport,” not “Eco Sport.” Of course, there have been times when spelling doesn’t count, such as with the Pontiac Aztek, or times when a car isn’t even named in English, like the Ford Galaxie.
Hindsight being 20/20, this was probably the right call. While I doubt calling the Escape the “Excape” would have hurt sales, it clearly wasn’t necessary. The Escape would become a home run and a leader of crossovers in America. The Escape was even ahead of its time, as the Ford Escape Hybrid became the first production hybrid SUV in America when it launched in 2004.
But in an alternate reality, there is a Ford Motor Company that named every one of its SUVs with “Ex …”
Top graphic image: Ford
I was today years old when I learned that I’ve been mispronouncing the dreary EcoSports name for its entire life. The more you know!
FTFY. 😉
Particularly given that EcoBoost is, in fact, pronounced the way you expect. They couldn’t even be consistent in the way they pronounce Eco.
Never heard of an ecosport.
Doesn’t sound exciting.
Hard to top Hyundai carefully and coldly deciding to deliberately mispronounce Hyundai in the USA.
A friend’s father owned a luxury model they made in the Middle East, and was highly annoyed by the mispronounced name here.
I was able to confirm he was right.
That they did it on purpose really pissed him off.
He was also disappointed he couldn’t get anything similar here.
The creator of the GIF file format says it is pronounced “jif”. So, the creator of something isn’t always right. Speak your truth, if Ford wants to pretend it’s pronounced other than how it is spelled, that is their problem.
Curious how you pronounce giraffe?
Doesn’t matter. Because it’s an acronym, the G in GIF is pronounced the same way the G in Graphic is.
Well if we’re going by acronym rules, it should be a djee-eye-eff 😉
The original definition is an abbreviation which forms an existing word, not a made up one.
But most people use ironic incorrectly, which I think actually qualifies. So …
That would be an initialism. An acronym is when the letters are pronounced as a word (e.g. GIF, radar), and an initialism is when they’re not (e.g. LED, which baffles me because “led” is short and easy to pronounce; CIA; etc).
Golly!
Marketing guys are exasperating, aren’t they?
Sounds like they were having a bit of an Ex-istential crisis. Maybe trying to distance their SUV from a certain Ex-football player who somehow get Ex-onerated.
Came here to say I thought Arrested Development covered the Ford naming convention already.
When my ex’s POS one broke down in the middle of a street, I helped her escape into a much better car. That pun lasted about a week, which was very long for a pun with us.
You could have hopped in your Excape to head out on your “active lifestyle” adventure to Starbucks and grab an Expresso.
Reminds me of the Neon “Expresso!”
My family’s first minivan was a Grand Voyager Expresso. Not because they just had to have the pinstripe and body color grille…it was just the one equipped like they wanted. At Dodge a Caravan Sport at least unlocked features an SE couldn’t get.
Actually, it’s pronounced Espresso.
/s
My BIL has been corrected by baristas in both US and France using both pronounciations.
I have a soft spot for these since my grandpa had one (in yellow!) for a bit. He traded in a first-generation Explorer Sport for the Escape.
He liked to cycle through cars. Explorer, Escape, Chevy Malibu Maxx, Pontiac Torrent, a turbo B6 Passat wagon (!), then finally another Escape.
“The target customer was someone who lived an active lifestyle, but wasn’t really interested in doing much off-roading”
The same crowd who wears “Just Do It!” shirts while spending the weekend on the couch stuffing their faces with snacks while watching others exercise on TV.
To be fair, I read that and thought, “That’s me” because I do a lot of camping, kayaking, mountain biking, etc. I want enough capability to get me down dirt roads, but don’t care to go up dedicated offroad trails.
Then again, I use a Mazda5 for all these adventures, so YMMV.
Me too.
Most of my driving today was off-road, none of it for entertainment.
The problem with the Great Outdoors is that it’s all outside.
That’s what giant TVs and PlayStations are for.
Sounds like committing to a single prefix for the fleet left Ford with a narrow Ex-it strategy.
The passing mention of the EcoSport reminds me – can you guys do a “Phoning It In” on that? I’d love a deeper dive into the process of patching a hole in their US lineup with the automotive equivalent of FlexTape. Am I right guys? No? Ok just me that’s interested in that then
I’ll second you on that. Every review I’ve read indicates it was possibly the worst car on sale in the US at the time. I know it was originally designed for developing markets but I’d be interested to know why the hell they brought it here.
The way I understood it, the EcoSport was a replacement for the Fiesta and Focus—Fiesta quality in an uglier, more compromised package with worse performance in every metric at mid-range Focus prices! How could it lose?
Owners love their Fiestas!
Deal! That sounds like a fun one. 🙂
Hell yeah! Turns out I wasn’t alone!
Not just you. That thing was a pile!
Anyone hear a difference in eco sport and echo sport?
No Ectoplasm released on Halloween?
I can hear the commercial music now…
“If you like Penor Colonics…”
That wouldn’t be completely terrible. Better than the Aspire. Or the Mach-E.
I still remember the Matra Rancho, but the idea of a Ford Exedge sounds good.
This is not the greatest CUV in the world. This is just a tribute.
Dude.
Came here for this. Left satisfied.
Wouldn’t that be the Mazda?
Regardless, I wish I could give this comment way more than one like.
Mazda, Ford, who can figure out where it came from at that strange time when Ford controlled a good chunk of Mazda.
Regardless, RAV4 has always been the answer in this segment. They’ll be running well after these have escaped this mortal coil.
Much good came from that marriage: Probe/MX-6, Escort/Protege, Fusion/Mazda6, Ranger/B-Series, Explorer/Navajo, Focus/Mazda3. Not all of these were rebadge jobs, and sometimes stretched the definition of “good,” but I digress.
As for the RAV4, outside the original, I just can’t regardless of their cockroach-like ability to survive.
I salute your Tribute and take to the high seas as a commercial sailor…
A Mariner, if you will 😉
Forgot about those!
Frankly, they could have spelled it the “eXcape” and used an edgy font with a faux-graffiti “X”, which was the style at the time.
No please no! I had finally started to forget about that absolute abomination. On the flip side, if life ever feels like it isn’t going right, I can take solace in the fact that I don’t own an EcoSport.
Truly one of the worst turds of all time.
Ex-crement?
LOL. Yes, indeed.
But knowing Ford they would probably correct customers at the dealership saying “It’s actually pronounced Ex-cre-monnnnt”.
When they came out, we were shopping for small crossover. On paper they only got 1-2mpg better than the Escape. What’s the point? Maybe in Europe its a better fit for the narrower roads since its a tall Fiesta.
My brother got one as a rental (1.0 ecoboost). It didnt like going up steep hill near my house, so that was easy to scratch off list.
If they’d given us the manual option and the tiny diesel + locking differential that they offered in the developing markets this Lil Tykes-mobile was intended for… then it would have been truly interesting and been a compelling alternative to the vastly overpriced side by sides. But alas, since Commiefornia hates all diesels, we can’t have it in the entire REST OF THE FUCKING COUNTRY.
May CARB burn in the bad place where it belongs.
California is dying faster than Iran.
Remains to be seen which one runs out of water first.
Every time I hear an NFL talking head say “Ex-Zavier Worthy” when referring to Chiefs player Xavier Worthy, I want to throw up.
I saw a brief football chat while waiting for the news.
One guy says so and so matriculated down the field.
Could not tell if he was joking.
That sounds like an obstacle illusion.
what a fun name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFp7atlOwI
We’re trying to shed that whole fugitive on the run thing.
Sounds like there was a bit of a journey in naming it the escape.
I hate that I got this.
We dodged a much worse name.
Dacia has a best seller in France called the Duster, a small SUV which to begin with was mainly an actual 4×4, even if the back wheels only woke up occasionally using the same system as in the X trail.
But my wife is English and she, any many other English people I know laugh when they see one, because in English a Duster is a cleaning rag…
Duster has enough of that meaning here as well that Plymouth made a Feather version of the Duster.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/this-1976-plymouth-feather-duster-is-a-rare-one-year-gem-born-from-the-oil-crisis-243792.html#
Tell us what your wife thinks of the movie Free Willy without telling us.
I think the British have a double meaning for every word or phrase.
Some jokes are triple references.
As long as they don’t name it the Ex-Wife then I think it’s good.
The payment plan on the Ex-Wife is half of your paychecks for the rest of your life.
They were going to have a model called the Mistress, which you could only lease for 2 years.
I thought the Mistress was just a nickname for the Mercury Cougar…
HEYOOOOOO
I wasn’t sure about my comment, but it was totally worth it for your response.
Oof. Yeah that would have been a magnet for jokes. And a real pain in the ass.
I will say this, the Escape was pretty nice looking, and probably the best thing that Ford built around that time.
Excape wouldn’t be all that bad. I thought it was going to way worse.
Yeah I remember that story. For a while, Ford’s marketing people lost their minds… wanting all truck names starting with E or Ex and all car names starting with F.
And that lead to stupid things like changing the name of the Taurus to “Five Hundred”.
Should have called it the “EXCuuuuuuuuuse Meeee!”
The highest and most luxurious trim could be “EXCuuuuuuuuse Meeee – Princess!”
It could be worse. They could have straight up gone full early aughts and said, “We’re calling it the ‘EXTREME!!!'” Said in that comically gruff tone of voice, of course. And with at least one of those exclamation points on the end, if not all three.
And then Chevy stole that a few years later as an S10 trim haha.
I think the S10 Xtreme actually pre-dated the Escape, but it’s fine: they’d have the “E” and at least one “!”.
Oh you’re right, and it was the Xtreme, not the eXtreme
The Xtreme debuted fall ’98 for the ’99 model year and lasted until 2002. It was meant to go toe to toe with the Ranger Splash and the Dakota R/T. I think Ford settled on the ‘Escape’ name by early 2000 because I have a distinct memory of one of the bright yellow ones featured in a full page advert when I was in 5th grade and I thought it was SO COOL. Still kinda do, TBH.