If you’ve been waiting for the chance to get your hands on a new 2018 Ford Expedition, your wait is coming to an end – because the first of them have started rolling off the assembly line.

Now in its fourth generation, the Expedition is Ford’s challenger to the likes of the Chevy Tahoe and Toyota Sequoia. It’s a full-size, truck-based SUV in an era when more and more sport-utes (including the Explorer) are going the crossover route with car-based underpinnings. That doesn’t mean it’s old-fashioned, though.

The all-new model has followed the F-150’s lead by adopting aluminum bodywork and an EcoBoost engine, saving a good 300 pounds off the curb weight in the process. It also packs a 10-speed automatic transmission and the latest infotainment technologies on board.

Though the Expedition was built in Wayne, Michigan, until 2009, it has since moved to the Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, where it’s built alongside the Lincoln Navigator (its more luxurious counterpart) and the Ford F-Series Super Duty pickup.

Ford invested some $900 million in the Kentucky plant to gear up for production of the new Expedition and Navigator, and secured a good thousand American jobs.

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