Over the course of its first 25 years, the Ford Explorer has had quite a roller coaster ride. It got off to a strong start in the original SUV wave of the 1990s eventually hit peak sales of more than 445,000 in 2000 before starting a decade of mostly steady decline. By 2009 when the shine was almost entirely off of the SUV in the depths of the great recession, Ford moved barely 52,000 Explorers. In 2011, Ford rebooted the whole concept, dumping the long-running body-on-frame layout for a car based unibody and it’s been smiles ever since. Fresh off a mid-cycle refresh, nearly 250,000 Explorers found a home last year, second only to the compact Escape. I spent a week with the new top-of-the-line Platinum edition and have some thoughts to share.

(more…)