Mike Kolich also know as ‘Dr. Derriere’ is on the Ford global seating team. With a Ph.D. in industrial and manufacturing systems with an emphasis on seat comfort, is setting out to cure butt blues with a new design for 2020 Ford Explorer seats.

According to AAA Newsroom, Americans spend an average of 17,600 minutes driving each year. That equates to a lot of seat time and butt blues.

‘Dr. Derriere’ and Ford team are working on ultimate on-the-road seat comfort for the all-new 2020 Explorer to ‘cradle your bottom’.

“Road trips can be largely defined by how comfortable people are – and when you get down to it, how comfortable our seats allow them to be,” said Kolich.

“As engineers, we’re thrilled with this new seat, but really it’s what our customers say and think that matters.”  

2020 Ford Explorer Seats

Ford says, the V-shape design gives torso support for a wider variety of body shapes and sizes.

The ventilation feature (in equipped models) draws warm air from the body instead of pushing cool air through the seat as current systems do.

Top of the line trim level (ST and Platinum) Ford Explorers get the multicontour massage seats with unique massaging patterns.

The 2020 Ford Explorer seats have a new design to the back of the seat allowing more leg room in the second row along with a new EZ-entry function.

EZ- entry functionality allows the second row to move without having to remove child booster seats, to get to the third row.

This new seat design undergoes a battery of tests to measure up to stringent Ford shape and softness standards to meet more than 100 engineering metrics for optimal comfort, Ford says.

Dr. Derrier adds, “What people see in a Mustang differs from what they see in an Explorer, but it’s all built on the same architecture. That architecture is the magic, in that it allows us to maintain consistency. These seats should feel similar to the seats in any other new Ford vehicle.”