Utility used to mean just the ability to carry stuff. Comfort and style were secondary, even mutually exclusive. No more. The Edge manages to provide plenty of utility and a stylish, comfortable interior. Starting at the back, the tailgate lifts to reveal a wide opening. And even when the rear seats are in place there's a reasonable amount of cargo room.

Pressing a button automatically reclines the rear seats to give a total of nearly 70 cubic feet of storage on a nearly flat floor. Furthermore, the front passenger seatback can be folded forward to provide a mostly level floor space for long objects all the way to the dashboard. The rear seatback splits 60/40 for increased versatility and the back reclines several degrees on all models for improved rear-seat comfort.

The rear seats offer a decent amount of leg room; in fact there's two inches more here than you'll find in the larger Explorer. Headroom is also reasonable in the rear, even with the optional Sky Vista roof. The rear-center passenger even gets more room than normal in a vehicle of this size, thanks to the wide track. Getting in and out is easier due to the rear wheels being placed well back allowing for less intrusion from the wheel well.

Front-seat occupants find a generous amount of room, again largely due to the vehicle's generous width. There is a large center console with a storage box big enough for a laptop computer. There are two decent cupholders alongside the substantial looking transmission shifter. The center stack is angled outwards to make the large knobs for the climate and entertainment controls easy to reach.

The four gauges are well recessed in their individual binnacles in the instrument pod in front of the steering wheel. About the only complaint in the cockpit we had during our test drive was the large number of reflections in the heavily raked windshield caused by the large shiny top surface of the dashboard. Ford ensured us this problem would be largely rectified in production vehicles through the use of less glossy materials.