DETROIT —The redesigned Ford Escape is a small sport utility vehicle with big shoes to fill.
The Escape that goes on sale this month replaces an older version that helped invent the pint-sized SUV category in the early 2000s. It was a huge hit for Ford, with more than 2 million sales over the past decade, and it went toe-to-toe with popular models like the Honda CR-V, Jeep Liberty and Toyota RAV4.
If the new, sharper Escape does what Ford wants it to do — unseat the CR-V — it will sit atop one of the fastest-growing vehicle segments.
Small SUVs are the only vehicles that have returned to pre-recession sales levels, said Erich Merkle, Ford’s chief U.S. sales analyst. More than 1.8 million of them were sold in 2011, around 14 percent of all sales. A decade ago, small utilities made up just 5 percent of sales. Models like the Escape are popular because they fill the needs of many different buyers, such as baby boomers who are downsizing from bigger models now that their children are grown.
