Ford Sport Trac Goes SVT by '07

Ford Motor Co.'s Special Vehicles Team (SVT) is back in business, promising a practical super truck by 2007 based on a revised Explorer Sport Trac sport/utility truck.

Ford plans to unleash the Sport Trac Adrenalin, based on the next-generation Sport Trac, likely to bow in 2006 as an '07 model. It features all-wheel drive, a 6-speed automatic gearbox and a 390-hp supercharged 4.6L V-8 sourced from the '04 Cobra Mustang. It also can tow 6,000 lbs. (2,722 kg).

The truck, fitted with meaty 21-in. wheels and oversized brakes, is equipped with Ford's patented Roll Stability Control technology coupled with a revised handling package, which includes short- and long-arm front suspension, a trailing-blade independent rear suspension, SVT-tuned shock and spring rates and more aggressively tuned front and rear stabilizer bars.

Ford showed the Adrenalin at the New York International Auto Show in March alongside other future SVT vehicles. The Adrenalin offers similar functionality to the F-150 Lightning, which is no longer produced by SVT, but should not be thought of as a replacement, a spokesman says.

If anything, the Adrenalin gives a sneak peak of what will define the next generation of SVT vehicles.