Ford’s 1973 Explorer concept truck has often been dismissed as a mere clone of the Dodge Deora, but we can see a lot more to the story. 

There’s no question that the 1973 Ford Explorer concept truck, which made the scene at the Chicago and Detroit auto shows that season, bears a superficial resemblance to the 1967 Dodge Deora, the radically customized Dodge A100 pickup created by the Alexander brothers of Detroit. Indeed, they’re both cabover pickups, and they’re both painted a flamboyant shade of metallic gold. The similarities have led many to assume that the Explorer was a simple knockoff of the Deora but in truth, the Explorer is considerably more interesting than that.

The Ridler Award-winning Deora was built for the hot rod show circuit, and to that end it  was equipped with a number of eye-grabbing features, including a pivoting front door and and swing-up windshield (with glass borrowed from a 1960 Ford station wagon). The arrangement was certainly an attention-getter, but it was totally impractical with zero potential for production vehicles.

In contrast to the Deora, the Explorer was carefully packaged like a production-ready vehicle, with a pair of conventionally hinged front doors and a functional passenger cabin with a full dash and overhead control console, above. Also, the Explorer’s cabover layout actually served a useful purpose, enabling a giant cargo box that was 65.7 inches wide and nearly 10 feet in length. Other Explorer features included a 429 cubic-inch V8 and classic ’70s-flavored interior trim in bold stripes and earth tones of gold and brown.

Usually displayed with a parasail-like tent canopy over the pickup bed, the Explorer was an early example of a Motor City adventure vehicle, if you will, designed to capture the imaginations of the active outdoors crowd. And while the Explorer concept never made it to the showrooms, obviously, the Explorer name continues to this day on Ford’s popular four-door sport-utility wagon, which in 2020 was declared the best-selling SUV in history.