2005 Ford Freestyle

Station wagons were once mainstream suburbia. So were minivans. In time, it seems, everything cycles out of favor. And if history is prologue, this fate will ultimately befall sport-utility vehicles. But people still need to haul themselves, their families and friends and their stuff around. And even the roomiest sedan with a multi-golf bag-sized trunk can't do it all. Into this breech slides the latest iteration of the do-everything vehicle, the so-called crossover. Not quite a wagon, not quite a minivan, not quite an SUV, not quite anything that's come before, the crossover tries to combine the best features from all of these. Some succeed better than others, and into this class falls the all-new 2005 Ford Freestyle. In the Freestyle, Ford has combined space-conscious and people-friendly packaging and a new-tech powertrain offering performance and efficiency. Three rows of seats yield either six or seven adult passenger capacity, and a unique-for-the-class, continuously variable transmission eases engine load and smoothes the drive. All-wheel drive is available for owners who want all-weather capability. Critics may say the Freestyle is simply the station wagon version of the new Ford Five Hundred sedan. And in many ways, they're right. Yet many have found the Freestyle inexplicably offers a better driving experience than the Five Hundred, and it's certainly more practical. The Freestyle is well worth a look for shoppers tired of the everyday vehicle, yet also tired of climbing up into and jumping down out of today's SUVs, and willing to explore something new and slightly different.