Ford Territory gets the feminine vote as a comfortable daily ride

There is no denying that Ford South Africa have been short on model derivatives, especially in the most popular segment of the lot, the SUV space.

It has been mostly up to the Everest to fly the flag with Puma not quite hitting the mark. The arrival of new Ford Territory, however, last year could not have come at a better time. And to offer us a little reminder of what their mid-size SUV offers, Ford dropped off a top-of-the-range Titanium spec Territory with strict instructions that it is for my wife to drive and for her to offer a lifestyle opinion of what it is like living with their new SUV on a daily basis.

My wife thought it looked pretty good, but she did comment that it looked a lot like the other Chinese SUVs. Which it does, so I had to tell her that despite the Ford Territory wearing a “true blue” badge, it is in fact very much a Chinese produced and sourced vehicle. This didn’t bother her one bit, and I don’t think it will many other potential buyers either.

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Electric tailgate works wonders

Jumping to the interior, she immediately commented on what she felt was a decent amount of space for the humans and her seemingly endless amount of cargo she drags to work every day.

We will get to the all the largely unnoticed tech, but her highlight was that the tailgate operates remotely via the push of a button. I think this had a lot to do with her being in and out the boot all the time, and while it might seem to be a trivial point, for her, it would have been near the top of her list of reasons to scratch a car off her shopping list if a car didn’t offer this.

For what it is worth, the Ford Territory Titanium offers a panoramic roof, LED ambient lighting, wireless smartphone charging, three USB ports up front and one in the rear and an eight-speaker Bluetooth audio system integrated into the centre touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, complemented by convenient steering wheel-mounted audio controls.

Marital squabbles

Right in front of you is a panoramic display that integrates a 12.3-inch high-definition digital instrument cluster, and a 12.3-inch landscape infotainment touchscreen which you can operate using your finger or a rotary controller on the centre console.

This leads me into the final part of this review, and that is the drive. I am just going to say that my wife and I drive somewhat differently. Where she says everything is nice, I get on my high horse about technical things like throttle calibration. And I have to say, I do not like the throttle calibration on the Ford Territory. It’s slow to react and when it does, it wants to take off like a race car, which is typical of almost all Chinese cars.

But, and this is a big but, my wife did not see things this way and was quite happy to trundle around the suburbs without a care in the world. Obviously, once on the boil, the 138kW of power and 318Nm of torque was more than enough for her and me for everyday driving.

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Ford Territory in tough segment

The seven-speed dual clutch transmission was smooth enough too, with the only pain being the auto start/stop that was also slow to wake up when you wanted to pull away. But again, this was something that my wife was more than okay with. She also had no real interest in playing with the four selectable drive modes. There are Normal, Eco, Sport and Mountain. The latter was lost in translation I guess.

She did think the fuel consumption figure we achieved of 9.1 litres per 100km was more than acceptable for medium-sized SUV and I agree with her.

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Despite some little niggles with the Ford Territory my wife was prepared to live with, the biggest hurdle this vehicle faces is the sales race. At a price point of R725 500 in the SUV segment, it’s absolute war against the Chinese like Chery, Jaecoo, GWM, Haval, GAC and Jetour. All of them offer similar product at a similar, or better price.