The four cylinder cars were cruising without difficulty at highway speeds, and they seemed to be handling the aerodynamic drag of their trailers without a problem.
You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAfZ1N56qjYNever mind, I couldn't resist. I have been following the thread for a while. Over here in Germany, the Escape would be considered a fairly large vehicle, and would definitely be used by families to pull their trailer for the summer vacation. The towing capacity for a Maverick (which is what I think how the Escape was marketed here) was given at 1500kgs; around 3300lbs. That is not really all that much.
As mentioned above, most pull vehicles are smaller 4-bangers, because that is mostly what people got. And most trailers are for summer use in these scenarios. And I can not really compare european trailers with american ones as I don't have much personal experience with either.
The automatic transmissions in the smallish cars do not like that sort of work much and will not last very long. A manual shifter probably fares better; at least you can replace the clutch, which may wear out sooner. Anyway, an auto trans is pretty rare over here anyway in a passenger car.
Have you personally pulled a trailer before? For me, it helped to make up my mind and get a truck camper instead, as I didn't like it much.
