Ford Excursion
Muscle · Ford
Ford Excursion: The Super Duty SUV Built to Out-Size the Suburban
The Ford Excursion is a heavy-duty full-size SUV that Ford sold for the 2000 through 2005 model years, built on the F-250 Super Duty pickup's chassis. For nearly two decades it was the longest SUV ever mass-produced, and it still has the longest wheelbase of any SUV.
Ford introduced the Excursion on September 30, 1999, to take on the heavy-duty 2500-series Chevrolet Suburban and GMC Yukon XL. Where the Expedition was based on the F-150, the Excursion came from the three-quarter-ton F-250 Super Duty and shared nearly its entire body with the pickup from the front doors forward. Out back it had a three-way cargo door, with a top-hinged window over split side-hinged doors, and taillamps from the E-Series van. It seated eight or nine, and Ford built it at its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville.
A 5.4-liter V8 was standard, with a 6.8-liter V10 optional. The diesel was a Navistar-built 7.3-liter Power Stroke V8, replaced during 2003 by a 6.0-liter Power Stroke with a variable-geometry turbo. Every Excursion was an automatic. Its gross vehicle weight rating ran from 8,600 to 9,200 pounds, which put it above the 8,500-pound line where EPA fuel economy ratings apply, so it never had an official mpg figure. Reviewers saw 12 to 15 mpg with the V10. Crash testing showed the Excursion rode up over smaller cars in a head-on hit, so Ford added a "blocker beam" under the front bumper and made a trailer hitch standard to do the same job at the back.
Popular Science called it the "biggest sport utility on the planet," and the Sierra Club nicknamed it the "Ford Valdez" in 1999. The first model year was its best, with nearly 69,000 sold. Ford could build 70,000 a year, but from 2001 sales barely reached half that, partly because of rising fuel prices, and it became the lowest-selling SUV Ford or Lincoln-Mercury offered. Ford replaced it for 2007 with the Expedition EL, which moved to F-150 underpinnings. Because so much of the truck is shared with the F-250, owners sometimes swap on the front end of a 2008 to 2016 Super Duty.