SAN DIEGO - The success of Ford Motor Co.'s new Explorer Sport Trac and F-150 SuperCrew may come down to a feature the two trucks don't have. It's called a ``midgate,'' a door in the back of the sport-utility cabin that opens to the small pickup box. A competing sport-utility pickup from General Motors, the Chevrolet Avalanche, will have a midgate when it goes into production next year, but the Fords don't. ``I think (a midgate) is a good idea,'' says Dee Kapur, Ford's vehicle line director for full-sized light trucks. ``We're definitely looking at it, but it's a couple of years away.'' He spoke at a press event here. Whether buyers in the niche will demand a midgate is not clear. Ford says the feature was rejected by focus groups examining the Adrenalin, a 1996 auto show concept that had a midgate.
Kapur adds that the engineering compromises required by a midgate would have made the new trucks less durable. Putting a door in the rear of the cab creates structural problems that can only be solved by making the pickup box sides and cabin sides from the same stamping. Even then, says Kapur, rough roads make the bed and cabin flex differently, which can tear the sheet metal at the joint. ``To do it right, you have to have a separate box and cabin'' with a mechanism that simultaneously opens the front bulkhead of the box and the rear bulkhead of the cabin, Kapur says. Will not having the feature cost Ford sales to GM? ``I don't think so,'' Kapur says. ``We'll see.'' @@Volume: 74 Publication number: 5855 @@Word Count: 266 words
