Shortly after dawn and filling our tank in Laingsburg, we pulled off at a lonely rest stop to brew strong moka pot coffee on my butane stove; just what the doctor ordered after a surreal night of never-ending cat’s eyes and, at best, an hour of broken sleep each. As we stood there drinking the caffeine along with that Karoo morning splendour, it appeared to be another average Monday – albeit with an unusually high amount of visible policing.
Did we really need to do what we did under the cover of darkness? Nope, not at all – we could have reached our final destination feeling less exhausted and no more stressed had the original plan been stuck to. In hindsight, however, I wouldn’t change a thing as there’s something special about spearing through the night with your best mate for company and the vast, inky black expanse of this beautiful country framed within your windscreen.
FORD 1.0 ECOSPORT ACTIVE 6AT: UPDATE 3
PRICE: R393,7000
ODOMETER ON DELIVERY: 10,000km
CURRENT ODOMETER: 14,437km
AVERAGE CONSUMPTION: 6.6l/100km
PRAISES: EcoSport Active proves a capable long-distance cruiser with decent luggage space and a surprising degree of refinement for what it is.
GRIPES: Seats get very uncomfortable after about three hours.
LONG-TERM UPDATE 3 | Is our Ford EcoSport up for the long haul?
It was the evening of March 19 and in a few hours' time the country would – going on the musings of every mainstream media outlet and social media stream worth its salt – grind to a halt as the “National Shutdown” went live.
I had already booked leave and was due to take a road trip to the Western Cape on Monday morning with a good friend who I hadn’t seen in years.
To avoid any of the potential pitfalls – blocked toll plazas, shut service stations and so on – I suggested we pony up early and drive through the silent night. The Australian duly agreed and after cramming our long-term Ford EcoSport Active with luggage, fuel and snacks, we hit the N1 and passed through the Vaal Plaza at about 7pm.
From here on in there was not much else to do but catch up on life Down Under and jointly evaluate our steed’s highway legs. By the time we reached Bloemfontein I had come to the conclusion that overall refinement is surprisingly good for a machine now very much in the twilight of its life.
Wind and road noise are both reasonably well suppressed, while that lengthy sixth gear ratio keeps the 1.0l EcoBoost motor spinning at easy revs: you’re looking at about 2,500rpm at an indicated 120km/h. This not only limits the amount of combustive clangour creeping into the cabin but also aids with improving fuel consumption.
Ford claims an official figure of 6.3l/100km but try as we might, the best we could collectively wrangle was 6.5l/100km. Not exactly terrible but not great either considering that on long, steady-throttle trips like this I am usually able to match or better the manufacturer’s claim.
On the other side of the spectrum, lumbering herds of pantechnicon trucks afforded us ample opportunity to test the EcoBoost engine’s overtaking urge. This three-pot’s 92kW and 170Nm sounds strong on paper but once you factor in some obvious drivetrain loss from that torque-converter auto box and a boot/backseat packed with gear, it’s not quite the dynamite-comes-in-small-packages fireball the sales brochure makes it out to be.
In fact we both agreed it straddles that awkward no man's land between being barely adequate and barely inadequate: something that necessitated a fair bit of planning and foresight when it came to passing lengthier lines of slower moving traffic – especially up hills.
A more pressing issue, however, was the small matter of seat comfort – or lack thereof. One hour? Cool. Two hours? No problemo. But after three hours at the helm the rather flat and shapeless leather seats fitted to the EcoSport Active become somewhat intolerable. No matter how much I fiddled with the lumbar wheel or experimented with seat cushion height, my lower back grew progressively more stiff.
The Australian complained of similar discomfort and when we swapped places so I could attempt sleep, I discovered the passenger chair was even more punishing due to its comparable lack of adjustment.
This necessitated stretch breaks at the many roadside picnic areas that litter the N1, which, in hindsight, were pretty damn special as we got to stare up at a moonless Karoo sky and snap moody long exposure photographs on the Australian’s fancy new iPhone. Not only did we spot shooting stars but also a geostationary satellite that blinked every five seconds or so and, to the uninitiated, could easily pass as a rogue UFO.
Shortly after dawn and filling our tank in Laingsburg, we pulled off at a lonely rest stop to brew strong moka pot coffee on my butane stove; just what the doctor ordered after a surreal night of never-ending cat’s eyes and, at best, an hour of broken sleep each. As we stood there drinking the caffeine along with that Karoo morning splendour, it appeared to be another average Monday – albeit with an unusually high amount of visible policing.
Did we really need to do what we did under the cover of darkness? Nope, not at all – we could have reached our final destination feeling less exhausted and no more stressed had the original plan been stuck to. In hindsight, however, I wouldn’t change a thing as there’s something special about spearing through the night with your best mate for company and the vast, inky black expanse of this beautiful country framed within your windscreen.
FORD 1.0 ECOSPORT ACTIVE 6AT: UPDATE 3
PRICE: R393,7000
ODOMETER ON DELIVERY: 10,000km
CURRENT ODOMETER: 14,437km
AVERAGE CONSUMPTION: 6.6l/100km
PRAISES: EcoSport Active proves a capable long-distance cruiser with decent luggage space and a surprising degree of refinement for what it is.
GRIPES: Seats get very uncomfortable after about three hours.
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