As sales of the Ford Explorer decline, so does its lineup. In 2010, Ford will drop the Explorer Sport Trac and the Mercury Mountaineer SUV. This move will occur when Ford switches the Explorer from a body-on-frame to a unibody platform. Based on the D3 platform used on the new 2010 Ford Taurus, the unibody 2011 Ford Explorer will go into production in 2010 at the Torrence Avenue plant.

Expect an EcoBoost model to follow after the standard gasoline engine choices make their debut. Since peaking in the 1990s, sales of the Explorer have fallen drastically. In 1999, FoMoCo sold 507,091 Explorers and 49,281 Mountaineers. In 2008, sales of the Explorer declined to 78,439, while Mountaineer sales were 10,596. Both are down more than 50 percent so far in 2009.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 1:45 am and is filed under 2009, 4wheels News, Automakers, Body style, Ford, Mercury, SUV/Crossover, U.S.A., Year, Zone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.