The Sad Truth - A 2021 Ford Excursion is Nowhere to Be Found

The Ford Excursion played directly to the heart strings of the American public. As a group of car buyers who historically have very heavily favored large SUVs and Trucks, the Excursion fit right into the mix. Coming in as the longest and heaviest SUV to make it to production, the vehicle set records while still performing well. 

Clearly Ford succeeded in building something people wanted. Years after being discontinued, you can look up the terms Ford Excursion 2020 and 2021 Ford Excursion and see that they are still - in early 2021 - searched 10,000 times a month. Note that neither of those models exist. Those and the previous 17 years don’t either. So it’s not a recent discovery that the storied model was given the axe. We've chatted recently about how the GranTurismo saw the same fate, and how the BMW i8 seems to be heading that way, but this is our first ill-fated SUV.

So what was the big deal? Why are people so obsessed with bringing back the Excursion in 2021? Here we discuss some of our favorite parts of the Excursion and why we think Ford should bring it back.

Ford Excursion Size

The Ford Excursion was based off the F-250 Super Duty pickup and shared a common width, wheelbase, and front / rear track width. You can imagine an SUV length based off of the largest F-250 would be especially large. It’s basically like they took one of the truck bed covers and threw it on there except instead of a bed they added an extra row of seats.

In its first year of production, Ford sold almost 70,000 units after the vehicle was dubbed the ‘largest sport utility vehicle on the planet’ by Popular Science. Needless to say, the Excursion found a niche in American’s desires to have the biggest cars on the road. Actually, I’d be interested in seeing an Excursion next to a Smart car… but I digress.

Engine Performance

One of the reasons that the Ford Excursion did so well to start was that it wasn't just a big shell on a crappy drivetrain. They took advantage of their experience with the Super Duty trucks to make this SUV be able to perform like a truck with the convenience of an SUV. It was almost like the creation of the 'crossover' type vehicle except in the opposite direction. Sadly, it seems the crossover was destined to succeed while the supercrossover (my term) was destined to die.

The performance of this vehicle, though, was not was took it down. Starting with a 5.4L V8 on the gas model and a massive 7.3L V8 turbo in the diesel version gave the Excursion plenty of power to get both work and play done. 8 seats made it easy to fit even the largest of families - mine was 7. The performance numbers made the truck a good option to mix between the two and am almost practical aspect to it, even though it was truly enormous. 

Why isn't there a 2021 Ford Excursion?

The unfortunate truth of the Excursion was that it just wasn't quite necessary enough. For those who wanted an SUV, there were a lot of other options available - the Expedition, Suburban, etc. So the family option could go with something a bit smaller and more economical, while still getting generally solid towing and engine performance. For those who really wanted a truck, the Excursion wouldn't quite cut it. Obviously there's not much you can do from a work standpoint with the Excursion if what you need is a truck bed for lumber or other construction supplies. So that group would still tend to buy the trucks they needed day to day. 

What you have left is a group of enthusiasts who really just want the Excursion for the novelty. They may already have the vehicles they need and just want to supplement, or it might just be used as a people mover. Either way, it's unlikely they were buying it because it fit the exact practical needs that they had. I'm not sure what that would be. Maybe you have a large family, and also often move a ton of large objects for work that need to be inside the vehicle? A prolific wedding cake maker? Hm. 

Ultimately the need to have the largest SUV ever dwindled after the first few years and Ford saw sales drop steeply. That mixed with the start of a decade long runup of gas prices in 2002 made this vehicle even less desireable. They made the decision to cut it in the end 20

Why Ford should bring it back

Historically, American SUV and truck sales tend to ebb and flow with gas prices. That's to be expected somewhat. No one wants to pay $5 a gallon for a 40 gallon tank that you'll burn through in a couple days. So as they spike, people buy more compact cars. Now that we're back in a gas price lull, I think it's the perfect opporunity to bring the ford Excursion back. The difference here is that there's actually a very large enthusiast community that follows this vehicle and playing to that group could be an interesting move.

Used excursion prices have topped $20k, even though they are almost 20 year old work SUVs. I think it would be an interesting move for them to build a 2021 Ford Excursion and see if they could tap a burgeouning enthusiast market. Though they are a high volume brand, they could follow some of Porsche's strategies with the 911 to build a real and devoted following. 

It may never be their top seller, but I think it would be an awesome thing to see.

Will there be a 2022 Ford Excursion?

One thing we can all agree on for sure is that 2020 and 2021 have done quite a number on all walks of life. From month long shutdowns to constant dinner talk about vaccines, few could have predicted the year we experienced. Economists were equally stumped when the economy continued to grow and gas prices fell to a new low as people stayed home for work. While I may have previously argued that these would be the perfect conditions for bringing back a 2022 Ford Excursion, modern trends toward electric vehicles still make that unlikely. 

10 years ago, gas prices generally dictated the trend of Americans buying larger or smaller vehicles (as prices went down and up, respectively). Now, almost all manufacturers have committed to major lineup shifts to electric and Ford recently announced the very first electric F150. Given this new focus on green vehicles, the dependency of average vehicle size to gas price will finally be broken. Size will now be dictated by how large and expensive the battery packs are at the time. As such, it seems very unlikely that Ford will be able to come up with an Excursion that can stand the test of time using a battery pack.

That said, if they can build an F150 with a battery, maybe they can make an Excursion too.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking...