When we are lucky enough to get our hands on a brand-new vehicle to test out, we may be looking for issues, but we aren’t expecting to find anything that can’t be written off as either “preproduction” or “teething issues”…usually, press fleet cars are put together pretty well, and if something does in fact go wrong, factory representatives are close by to hear what we have to say so they can hurry up and get to work on a solution before that annoying squeak or rattle becomes a trademark of the model.

Given that, we would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Peter Barnwell, an auto reviewer for News Corp Australia, was having it out with Ford Australia representatives over the results of his test drive of a new Ford Everest. The Everest is based on the international-market Ford Ranger and is powered by either one of two four-cylinders or a diesel inline-five. According to news.com.au, Barnwell was just driving along when the warning lights on the gauges started lighting up before the whole vehicle shut down. Seeing flames starting to appear from underneath the hood, he did exactly what any human would do: get as far away from the burning Ford as possible and get the fire department onto the scene to put out the brand new SUV.

Twenty minutes later, all that remained of the Everest was a roasted shell. Ford Australia is performing an investigation into why the Everest, along with four known Ford Ranger pickup trucks, have caught fire on their own accord. The “T6” era Ranger has been out since 2011, and while the Everest is still fairly new, it’s based completely on the T6 architecture.

(Photos and source: news.com.au)