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The stylish new Ford Flex, not quite a minivan, not quite an SUV, may be the first 21st Century Ford station wagon from a company that practically invented the segment. It's an addition to the Ford product line, designed to compliment the smaller 5-seater Taurus and the Taurus X with which it shared a platform.

The Flex was designed to look like nothing else on the road. It has square corners, four conventional doors, a rear hatch, a long, flat hood and the now-familiar Ford three-bar horizontal grille. But it also has an all-black greenhouse regardless of paint or roof color, and it has a decidedly low-slung stance, just the opposite of most SUVs. For such a long, wide vehicle, it has a drag coefficient of only 0.33, a very good number for its size.

The Flex is the only vehicle of its type that incorporates its rocker panels as part of the sheet metal of the doors, folding under to the chassis. The Ford designers said it makes the car look longer and lower than it is, and makes it easier to get in and out without getting dirt on your pants.

The Flex is built on a 118-inch wheelbase version of the same chassis that goes under the Taurus, Sable and Taurus X, and that extra length gives it what Ford says is the largest interior in its class at just under 176 cubic feet. Every seat in the Flex but the driver's seat, including the front passenger seat, folds down flat.

For the Flex, Ford lengthened the body structure it shares two inches with the wheelbase being stretched a full five inches. The entire five inches of additional length are added to the second row for easy entry and exit and lots of legroom for the second-row passengers. The B-pillar was moved back for easy ingress/egress, and Ford says there is 44 inches of legroom in a Flex, with seven inches of knee clearance.

The engine in the Ford Flex is a 3.5-liter 24-valve V-6 engine that's in all the other Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles on this platform, slightly detuned to 262 horsepower at 6250 rpm and 248 foot-pounds of torque at 4500 rpm.

With its refreshing design, easy-to-live-with low ride height, big tires and wheels, quiet and spacious interior, and the all-around solid performance, we think the Ford Flex is needed in the marketplace. Especially in a competitive field that looks old and stodgy by comparison to this entirely new shape, size and style of family wagon.