Ford Escape 2021 review: Vignale

To my eyes, the Escape is a fine-looking thing, taking the muscular cues of the Puma which themselves are a throwback to a 1990s-era sports coupe. See? You can go back to go forward.

The Vignale's less aggressive visage compared to the mid-spec ST-Line still fails to render it anonymous, which is nice, and the 19-inch alloys fill the arches well. I like the subtly pumped arches, the undulating lines and the fact that the Escape is a bit of a low-rider as SUVs go.

Inside, it's strongly reminiscent of the excellent Focus interior, which should come as no surprise because the Focus and Escape share Ford's C2 platform. While it's not an avant-garde masterpiece, it's a nice place to be with good materials throughout and a mostly leather trim (there's some fake stuff, but not so you'd notice).

The digital dash is very cool and I noticed that in normal mode, the indicator for how far you're travelling from the car in front seems to be a Mondeo but when you switch to Sport mode it's a Mustang. Cute.

The digital dash is very cool.

Front-seat passengers enjoy a lot of headroom as the seats are down in the car rather than on it, to add to the sporty feel. A good view out also helps.

Front-seat passengers enjoy a lot of headroom.

The rear seat is broad and flat but will take three across, although the transmission tunnel is predictably intrusive. There is tons of legroom with the sliding back seats all the way rearward, almost limo-like, as our very tall son can attest. 

The rear seat is broad and flat but will take three across.

You can also have two ISOFIX chairs installed, and three top-tether mounts are also available.

The boot is a mid-pack 412 litres when the sliding rear row is all the way back, with an increase to 526 litres with the seats all the way forward.

Front-seat passengers have three cupholders to choose from, big door pockets with bottle holders and a chunky-sized centre console bin under the armrest.

The space for the wireless charging pad goes under the centre stack and it's within easy reach of either a USB-A or USB-C port. There is one of each USB port in the rear, too

The Escape ships with six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, as well as high- and low-speed forward AEB with pedestrian detection, forward collision warning, evasive steering assist, traffic sign recognition, blind-spot monitoring, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, driver impairment monitor and auto 000-dialling after a big enough crash (if your phone is connected).

You also get top-tether and ISOFIX restraints.

The Escape scored five ANCAP stars in October 2020.

Ford offers a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty with a reasonably-priced servicing program. The first four services are capped at $299 each, up to four years or 60,000km and Ford expects to you see every 12 months or 15,000km.

Ford buys you a motoring association membership (NRMA, RACV etc.) which also includes roadside assist and you get a loan car when you’re in for a service.

For the Ecoboost, Ford reckons the FWD and AWD will drink 95 RON fuel at 8.6L/100km on the combined cycle. My week with the Escape, which included a quick...er...escape from Sydney – I should be deeply sorry about that, but it's 2020, give me a break – delivered an indicated result of 11.2L/100km. That's a bit on the thirsty side, but 183kW in an SUV is hard to resist and I am a weak-willed man. As the nameplate pun suggests.