It’s been twenty years since Ford first introduced the cowboy-themed King Ranch trim, named after the King Ranch in Texas and featuring liberal use of the ranch’s W-shaped brand. King Ranch has since become staple of the Ford F-150 and Super Duty pickups, slotted above the XLTs and Lariats but below the high-end Limited and Platinum models.
From a marketing perspective, a King Ranch Explorer makes sense. It’s possible Ford would pattern such an Explorer after the pickup trucks, slotting it between the $35,890 Explorer XLT and the $46,895 Explorer Limited. We think it’s more likely that a theoretical King Ranch Explorer would follow the Expedition’s lead and be based on the top-of-the-line Platinum model. If that’s the case, a Kind Ranch Explorer would likely be priced between the $54,495 hot-rod Ford Explorer ST and the $56,370 Explorer Platinum.
What might a Ford Explorer King Ranch look like? For the exterior, we don’t expect anything radical; our guess is that it would be similar in appearance the Platinum with some additional badging. Most of the differentiation would be inside the cabin, where King Ranch models generally get brown leather embossed or embroidered with the King Ranch logo and open-pore wood. In terms of features, we imagine the level of equipment would likely rival the Explorer Platinum.
However, all of this is mere speculation on our part. We could be wrong about the adornment and we could be wrong about the Explorer. According to Ford, we’ll only be in the dark for a couple of days, as the new King Ranch model will be announced in two days’ time.