2015 Ford Expedition gets the twin-turbo treatment

Only in America does there exist thousands of homes which find need for a new vehicle every year that can carry up to eight people and their luggage while towing three or four tons of weekend entertainment options. Once upon a time, those homes turned to Ford and its brawny Expedition; for 2015 Ford hopes to win some of those fans back with a new look and a less thirsty engine.

Updated but not redone, the 2015 Ford Expedition offers a slightly freshened design inside and out and a sprinkling of new technology, from a radar-based blind spot alert to a 700-watt, 10-speaker Sony stereo. But the major news comes under the hood, where Ford eliminates the 5.4-liter V-8 in favor of the twin-turbo 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 used in the F-150 pickup. Ford didn't reveal power or fuel economy numbers, saying only the EcoBoost would make more grunt than the 310 hp V-8 with less gasoline — and given that nearly half of F-Series trucks now come with a turbo, the opposition to the switch will likely be in the minority.

Last year, Ford managed to sell 35,000 Expeditions, lagging the Chevy Suburban by some 15,000 copies and far from the American SUV boom of the '90s when Ford sold more than 200,000 annually. With new versions of its full-size, truck-frame SUVs, Chevy and GMC will likely dominate the business for several years to come, until Ford reveals an all-new Expedition expected around 2017. Until then, those big families will either go turbo or tow their boat elsewhere.