If you're still wondering how Ford got itself into such a mess in the US, you need only look to one car: the Ford Explorer.

Launched in 1991, the Explorer pretty much single-handedly brought Ford to its knees a decade later, during the now infamous Firestone incident. Or rather incidents. Many of which are still rumbling through the courts. With lawyers still battling it out, it's hard to say where the blame lies, but the problem was that Explorers fitted with Firestone tyres had a nasty tendency to roll over, weave or just crash.

Suddenly, the nation's default SUV had a reputation as a death-trap and its sales, a bit like the cars, just rolled over and died. Rather than acknowledging the problem and finding a quick solution, the two companies bickered about who was at fault while the trouble worsened and spread to the rest of the Ford business.

The scandal that followed shook most of the top management from their posts, unravelled all the years of work that had been done to turn it into an automotive services company - and exposed Ford in the US as having a woeful line-up of the one thing it needed to survive: cars.

It managed to get by on absurdly profitable F-Series truck sales for the next couple of years, but it was on the slide. The nation developed a taste for Japanese cars, SUVs and - horror - even trucks. A taste that is stronger than ever today.

I'm discussing this problem with the team of Ford designers who dreamt up the Ford Explorer America concept car. Right now, they are thinking about getting some feedback.

"Er, how about Costco?" says Ford's Chief Designer of Strategic Design, David Woodhouse. Yup, no fancy assignments to the beach or Beverly Hills for Ford's Advanced Design Studio researchers. They know where their people are, and it's not outside a slick boutique - they're out in the real world, in places like the Costco car park. So that's where the team decided to go.

And they didn't have to look too hard to find their customers. "At least 20 per cent of the cars in the car park were Ford Explorers," says Ford Strategic and Advanced Colour and Materials Designer, Fairuz Arabo. "We sat there for hours watching and photographing them, to learn what they use their cars for." It showed the team where they should be heading. "Sometimes, you don't have to think about the design too much," Arabo says. "The world tells you what it wants."

What the world told the team it wanted from its Explorers was everything from mobile nappy-changing platforms through to impromptu office space. So, for the concept, the designers and researchers concentrated on improving the core functionality of the car in specific areas.

These are: better entry to the third row of seats, which Interiors man John Paxton feels he has solved with the Single Touch Access (STAC) system that folds the seats flat at the touch of a button; easier access in tight spaces, cured by the adoption of a kerbside sliding side door; and a better resolved workspace at the back, created by a simple extendable bench and table which pull out from under the rear deck.