Content area
Full Text
Ford launches the '03 Lincoln Aviator luxury SUV - and it's no Explorer
Lincoln and "driving dynamics" in the same sentence? Yep. The '03 Aviator starts with the body-on-frame platform of the Ford Explorer, but engineers spent three years developing its unique characteristics, over and above the 50% shared components with the Explorer.
"We put a lot of money in suspension and steering components," says J.D. Shanahan, vehicle engineering manager-- Lincoln SUV. Defining characteristics -- steering, styling, suspension, noise/vibration/harshness - are different, he stresses.
The Aviator's version of the all-aluminum 4.6L V-8 has a DOHC cylinder head, compared with a 2-valve setup for Explorer, and the intake system is unique on the modular, dual-overhead-cam engine assembled in Romeo, MI.
For Aviator, the V-8 generates...