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’d say that the current generation Excape looks an awful lot more like an excretion than a car.
There was an R&B group called Xscape, but pronounced the same way.
I always thought it was pronounced Ess-cop-ay…
I had a sales job around 2012 where I got issued a brand new Escape. It was syrup on a cold day slow, but had an AC you could use to preserve meat.
I will never forget my team quoting Finding Nemo and calling it the “ESS-COP-AA” Still makes me giggle every time I see one. …”ESS-COP-AA”
Echo Sport 😛
https://img.carswp.com/toyota/echo/photos_toyota_echo_2003_1_1280x960.jpg
Too bad we never got the Echo hatch, though Canada got it.
I saw one of those just the other day and wondered what it was.
Should have called it the Exorcist
Given the state of education, most people would have probably thought that was the correct spelling.
They could’ve gone with the Excelsior to keep with the “ex” thing.
Normally when somebody is this into their Exs, we stage an intervention. Was Ford telling us something?
Sing it to the tune of Tammy Wynette’s
D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
Or R E S P E C T
On a related note per Wikipedia the Mazda Tribute was nearly named CX-5. I’m not sure of Mazda’s logic since their 2 door Explorer was called Navajo and subsequent products are either MazdaX or CX-X.
They misnamed the entire lot. Going smallest to largest:
Escape
Excursion
Explorer
Expedition
Yeah, Edge and EcoSport don’t exactly go with the theme here, but in terms of vehicle size to what you’re doing, this arrangement makes a whole lot more sense than what they actually gave us.
And if truth in advertising were still a thing, maybe the EcoSport should have been named the Junket.
I parked my R107 next to an Excursion for the lulz and it was amusing. It is SO BIG.
Is it really dumber than when they decided all cars should start with an F? Minus the Fmustang of course. Killed the Taurus nameplate for the stupidly generic Five Hundred moniker, but we know that didn’t last long.
But then also named the Flex without an E, even though it’s as much an SUV as the Escape and co.
I thought the naming convention at Ford was to name all the SUVs after Internet browsers
Explorer
Navigator
Edge
Almost there if you count Netscape separate from Navigator.
Shop ’em at a Ford dealer in Altavista, VA.
I’d love to see a Ford Firefox!
The Dodge DuckDuckGo ran circles around that one.
Chrysler is a quack
The DUKW was a GM product.
How did they never do that?
That’s when a Fox body explodes
Safari was taken by GM 😛
Could’ve been the Ford Exit-Stage-Left, that’s a type of Escape.
The new Ford Exude, leaking near you
If hip-hop was the inspiration, I’m surprised it wasn’t “Lil’ Explorer”.
They also had the Taurus X later on…
It’s not in the dictionary? He should have retorted neither is XR4Ti.
Well the XR4Ti wasn’t a “Ford”, so different rules must apply. Considering the whole raison d’être of Merkur was that it was foreign Ford, I’m sure an unorthodox amalgamation of letters made it sound more foreign than Sierra..
That said, I nominate Ford Exarforteeyaï.
And Fabio is in the ads.
It was resolutely a Ford in Yurop, as was the XR3i (escort) and XR2 (fiesta).
I prefer Kuga. But then the Mercury Cougar fans would grab their pitchforks like the Mustang owners did at the Mach-E.
That wouldn’t have worked, because Koo-ga is how Arnold Schwarzenegger would pronounce Cougar. We’d never know if he was talking about a Ford or a Mercury when he tells us to get to the Koo-ga!
“This was around the time hip-hop was becoming popular and automotive names were getting more creative.”
There actually was an all-girl hip-hop/R&B group called Xscape that came out in the early 90’s, ironically enough. And I have a 2008 Escape, which I enjoy (have had it 14 years, so I can’t complain).
If they did go with Xscape it would have been “Off The Hook”.
Hard to believe that the folks who brought us the Probe, might be capable of coming up with a cringy name.
Other names from the cutting room floor:
Executioner
Exhibitionist
Expectorant
Extrusion, Exhaust, Exercise
They could have called the Escape the Excursion and the Excursion the Executioner.
Euthanasia
Excrete
Exfoliant
Expunge
Exhibitionist
Expel (not the film)
At least they didn’t call it the “Eck Cetera.” Else I might’ve had to have tossed a few cinderblocks into strategic places for revenge.
BTW, while tend not to want to encourage SUV hawkers in any way, I have expressed my desire for an “Expialidocious”.
(Assuming Ford could get the licensing rights to it; it’d cost a pretty penny.)
@Gen3 Volt… that last one…
Even just the sound of it, is really quite atrocious…
*dances away with the Disney cartoon animals*
Hmm.
Don’t you want to sound precocious? Like, always?
That’s just axking for trouble.
“Escape” was definitely the right decision, but considering the time we are talking about, a 2 or 3 year special model that was faster or better off road named the “Excape” would have been appropriate. The S10 had the Xtreme starting in 1999, so possibly too much of a copy cat name.