Old Ford Explorer Speeds Up Bumpy Off-Road Trail
Before you watch second-generation Explorer bounce to bumpy trail’s summit, be sure you put in a mouthguard.
We’ve tested press vehicles from a variety of manufacturers off-road over the past several years. It’s fun taking a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen or Jeep Wrangler Rubicon through mud and over rocks, but when you’re driving someone else’s vehicle, you have to go slow to keep the ride smooth (because many times there’s a company representative riding shotgun) and the vehicle from getting damaged. Those rules don’t apply when you’re in your own rig, though. The owner of this second-generation Ford Explorer certainly doesn’t follow them. He charges up a rough and bumpy trail at his own pace.
Two Instagrammers who go by the names Isaac (aka cravinwaves) and Guero (aka xj_guero) recently went out for a day of wheeling on a trail in Lake Arrowhead, California. In case you couldn’t tell by his screen name, Guero showed up in an XJ Jeep Cherokee (the boxy kind Jeep made from 1984 until 2001). Isaac came in the “Blue Demon,” his 1996 Explorer.
We’ve got a guess as to why he calls it that. We don’t think it’s because of its engine. Isaac’s Explorer doesn’t have a supercharged Coyote V8 swap or a 7.3-liter Power Stroke diesel hiding under its hood. It just has a 4.0-liter V6, a five-speed manual transmission and four-wheel drive. We think Isaac gave his Explorer the moniker “Blue Demon” because well…it’s blue…and he drives it as if he’s trying to climb out of Hell as fast as possible.
Isaac starts off near the bottom of an uneven uphill pass. The path ahead is a series of dips and humps in the terrain that would give many suspensions a decent workout at normal speeds. If Isaac made Blue Demon crawl over the obstacles, it would take him a few minutes to reach the peak. For these kinds of trails, slow and steady is usually the way to go so you don’t bite your own tongue or bottom the suspension out. But Isaac seems to have no intention of waiting that long. He just wants to go. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to worry about his approach angle as much as he might have to otherwise because he took Blue Demon’s front bumper off. That means Isaac can carry a little more speed over the trail, a privilege he fully indulges in.
Isaac throttles up the entire way. Whatever adjustments Blue Demon’s tires and suspension have to make, they need to make them quickly because Isaac is not putting on the brakes and choosing a different line of attack. There is no Plan B. There is only forward progress – even when Blue Demon only has only one tire touching the ground.
When it comes to off-road action, the Ford Bronco and Raptor get the most attention for it. But Isaac’s Blue Demon Explorer does one hell of a job getting over rough terrain, too.
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