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"FacebookPinterest\n\nFacebookPinterestKITMAN_rubric.gif\n\nSome ordinary citizens imagine the life of the professional road tester as one endless procession of high-speed, two-seat exotica interspersed with lavish meals, bottomless mini-bars, and complimentary spa treatments, all paid for by well-heeled carmakers looking to curry favor with easily impressed hacks from the low-integrity wing of the Fourth Estate. And so, I'm thankful to report, it largely is.\n\nExcept sometimes even us veteran car testers have to travel on our own dime. And on these solemn occasions, we sometimes find ourselves having to dial down the turbo-boost long enough to spend a moment with our own families. Sometimes, even, in cars with more than two seats\u2014sometimes lots more than two. Which is why I am grateful for the Ford Flex, a remarkably practical, yet strangely desirable vehicle I borrowed (okay, I can't pay for everything) on a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest.\n\nThe Flex works like the dread minivan, which so many of us would rather kill ourselves than own, but it looks like something considerably cooler. More importantly, it drives like something that doesn't remotely make us want to kill ourselves. My sister in Portland, Ore., and a friend of hers from Chicago remarked as I pulled up that it looked like a big MINI Cooper, which in the realm of people-haulers is an unalloyed compliment.\n\n Ford doesn't call it a minivan\u2014mind you the genus is widely agreed\n\n to be as sexy as Larry King after a 24-hour hostage crisis\u2014but that's what it is. And at up to $40,000 for a loaded model, it's not cheap, which is one reason why Ford doesn't stand a prayer of reversing the broad decline in minivan sales that today's young parents seem intent on enacting despite their superior space and accommodation compared to the new standard of family machinery, including the top-heavy cross-over class. (Memories of their own parents' terminally boring Dodge Caravans and Ford Windstars are apparently seared into memory.)\n\nBut as the guy who doesn't have to pay for the thing, I just have to say the Flex takes the sting out of minivan conservancy, and even tickles my car-tester imagination. In addition to its unconventional style\u2014the handiwork of the Ford studio when run by the very clever Peter Horbury, now returned to Volvo as head of design\u2014the Flex, based on the Volvo S80 platform, is trimmed with high-quality materials and handles surprisingly well. I even detected steering feel, which was banned from the minivan build sheet for decades. Meanwhile, a twin-turbo EcoBoost V6 managed to shift the Flex's not inconsiderable weight and four-wheel-drive system with authority while delivering over 22 miles per gallon during a couple days of 80mph highway driving.\n\nAlso, the stereo rocked.\n\nRounding off an unconventional week spent reaching into my own pocket was the experience of paying for my own hotel room. In this regard, a weekend special at Seattle's Four Seasons was a tonic experience. Spacious, gracious and not cheap\u2014but totally worth it. It reminded me, like the Flex, that there is more to life than accommodation cramped in the name of high-speed. Sometimes space and grace set the pace."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/have-you-driven-a-flex-lately>