Review: Ford crosses over into the mini-SUV segment with tiny EcoSport

Enlarge / The Ford EcoSport out on the highway. (credit: Ford)

The crossover and SUV market, being what it is, has been sliced and diced into discrete chunks. There are the behemoths: true full-size SUVs like the Chevy Suburban. There's the luxury market, where the relevance of "utility" sometimes falls into question. Then there are the subcompacts, cars like the Mini Cooper Countryman and the Honda HR-V-small crossovers with an SUV profile, a reasonable amount of cargo space, and a backseat that's not punishment for those over five feet tall. And then there's the Ford EcoSport.

Ford

New to the US market in 2018, Ford's bite-size crossover sits below the Escape in Ford's soon-to-be-sedan-less lineup, and it has an attractive sticker price. The base model, the EcoSport S, starts at $19,995 and offers a 1.0-liter turbocharged, direct-injected three-cylinder engine. The model we tested, the SES, begins at $26,880. Engine size is doubled, with a 2.0L four-cylinder direct-injection Ti-VCT engine. That's paired with a six-speed transmission and all-wheel drive (on the SES only; the other three models are front-wheel drive). Safety-wise, the EcoSport has side air-curtain tech for both the front and back seats, roll stability control, and Ford's SOS Post-Crash Alert System.

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