The much awaited giant of an SUV from Ford India is finally here, deliveries being held up because of a delay in homologation. Yogendra Pratap gets in behind the wheel of the behemoth to discover through this exhaustive road test whether it really delivers all that it promised in terms of a discerning customer's practical, safe and luxurious alternative to the homegrown self-styled SUVs.

This vehicle has had its origins from the Mazda Fighter and or the Ford Ranger which is built for the south-east Asian markets at the Ford-Mazda JV plant at the Thai port city of Rayong. Its underpinnings remain very much that of a pick-up truck while its engine is a Mazda derived unit used for its low cost of manufacture coupled with the requirements of these markets in terms of emission norms, fuel efficiency and most of all - affordability. A Hiroshima based design team worked to develop the Endeavour aka Everest and give it the qualities desired by the developing markets. As we finally get to put the Endeavour through the OVERDRIVE road test we discover all the areas where the engineering team has been able to get the Endeavour up to expectations and also those areas which leave something to be desired still.