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" Twelve years and 2 million Escapes later, Ford has completely redesigned its small SUV. You&amp;#039;d think after all that time the box-on-a-box original Escape might be lagging on the sales chart. Guess what? Last month was the best sales month ever for the Escape.   Video window may take a few moments to load...            Some of you might be thinking, &amp;quot;Well, if its works, why fix it?&amp;quot; but that&amp;#039;s not Ford&amp;#039;s approach. For one thing, the automaker is on a tear to globalize many of its vehicles and this is a prime example. While we get it as the Escape, European and Chinese buyers get it with the name Kuga. Aren&amp;#039;t we lucky ours is called Escape?   Secondly, the amount of new technology begging to be integrated into a new vehicle means the current Escape is, to be frank, old fashion.         2013 Ford Escape    And it looks it, something the new Escape doesn&amp;#039;t. Taking on design cues seen on other small Fords, the Escape is a visual great leap forward. It looks like the larger cousin of the Focus, from the aggressive grille to the kick-up at the rear of the side glass area. Some buyers might even find the shape too aggressive...but they could always fall back on Honda&amp;#039;s CRV or Toyota&amp;#039;s RAV4.         2013 Ford Escape     Fundamentals of the interior--front seats, the folding second seats, and the flat load floor--are spot-on for what you&amp;#039;d like in a small SUV. One set of buyers will like the aggressive look of the dashboard and center stack, others might find it a bit overdone, but no one could fault Ford for not providing plenty of upfront tech. It would depend on which model you had, of course, and we drove the high-line Titanium version.         2013 Ford Escape     That meant we had the latest Synch with MyFord Touch, which forsakes much of the confusion of earlier versions. The voice command system works very competently and we could fault only the small size of the typefaces on the display.   There&amp;#039;s still more tech stuff--optionally in many cases--like park assist for parallel parking, blind spot and parking lot cross-traffic alerts and the chance to appear to be kicking your Escape in the backside. Actually what you&amp;#039;d be doing is waving your foot under the rear bumper to activate the liftgate. Handy when your arms are Costco-full and it&amp;#039;s raining.         2013 Ford Escape     While the base engine is an updated version the 2.5-liter four from the old Escape (168 bhp, 170 lb.-ft. of torque), Ford figures about 90 percent of Escapes will go out the door with an EcoBoost four. They offer a pair, a 1.6 (178 bhp, 184 lb.-ft.) and a 2.0 (240 bhp, 270 lb.-ft.). Each is backed by a 6-speed automatic and able to get 30 mpg highway or better. Drivelines can be had with Intelligent 4WD, Curve Control and Torque Vectoring.         2013 Ford Escape    Again, we drove the Titanium with the larger wheels, and found both the ride and handling to be impressive for a small SUV. Ford wasn&amp;#039;t afraid to put us on some demanding twisting roads and the Escape was right at home. The 2.0-liter EcoBoost easily handles the job with a slight (and we thought enjoyable) touch of turbo sound off in the distance. The bigger engine will even tow up to 3500 lb.   Escape prices will start at $23,295. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-drives/reviews/a18183/2013-ford-escape-1/>