Moosetang

Well one big difference between now and then is that even if Ford were to take an SUV/CUV- first approach, it wouldn't mean freezing out the development of the ingredients needed to make compettive cars. Platforms, drivetrains, running gear, etc are shared a lot more between cars and Utility Vehicles than they were in the 90s Ford lineup. It would be harder and more costly to build class-leading utes alongside below-average cars than to share the best-in-class bits among both.

FCA would only sell Jeep if it meant the survival of Fiat. Long way from there yet.

Yeah I don't think there's much risk of a vehicle built in a Ford plant being replaced with one built in an FCA plant. But shared R&D on low-margin vehicles probably has a lot of appeal. Also, considering how much the major nameplates share the same suppliers there's probably some money to be made back in sharing costs on components.

I'm a huge fan of that big star, unfortunately the minimalism trend right now is just too pervasive for it to get any kind of support. I'm pretty thankful that the Ford family has so thoroughly embraced the Blue Oval logo's look, without them I'd expect some mercenary executive to decide it was too out of style and replace it with something terrible.

Why mule a diesel ranger with F-150 when they already have spare T6 ranger test vehicles hanging around? That's a lot of extra weight for the mule to haul before its even loaded with test gear.

Gee, must be Jalopnik Car of The Year contender now.

I think there are plenty of legitimate areas to criticize Ford's EV strategy and maybe it's strategy more broadly, but that article does a pretty poor job. This is no small part of it. Similarly, when you see a company buy back its majority control or even go private the stock people automatically label it as a desperation move. And don't get them started about companies which put off their IPO.

How about they add a fourth letter? MKRY

A little bored tonight so here's my new conspiracy theory: Caterpillar has broken up with Navistar. Eventually they'll want to drop Navi's 13L for its CT trucks, and they still haven't said where the 15L engine they announced last summer is coming from, but Cat still doesn't want to get back into the on-highway engine building game itself. Ford meanwhile would like a nameplate that can hang on the side of the 750 that looks as good as "CUMMINS" does. So Cat and Ford are doing a deal where Ford builds Cat's on-highway engines (in Mexico, Turkey, wherever) and gets to put the Cat badge on the medium duty diesel trucks.

Pretty much. And long-term performance is only barely indicative of anything concrete in regards to a company's health. Today's stock market a really bizzare place.

Bronco, Aviator, EcoSport replacement, Lincoln Bronco

Coolness. I don't know if I'd ever be someone that checked the box for that interior, but I'm really glad it exists.

Id say they are already evolving away from the Aston look, the grills are all getting shorter and wider. But if they are thinking about a new design language, the time we'd see a concept is the year before an ground-up redesign of Focus or Fusion rolled out.

I think the tail is a tasteful if boring upgrade of the current Fusion's worst feature. But the nose seems like a minor step backwards compared to the current lovely front end.

Friend in another forum had some real gripes with a first-gen Fusion build quality, nothing fatal but enough that I'd double check everything. The Five Hundred from what I can tell is quite solid, although the CVT is often a sore spot.

Looks pretty good. Wish the light were a bit wider and the grill slighly more narrow, though.

Going to disagree with you here, while the look us more modern than the old TC I really don't like how the detail work was handled on the new one. That Transit and the Transit Courier both wear their skin a lot better.

The Conti-style front clip seems to work for a vehicle that size, if Max and Co can get the rest of the T to that level I think it would be quite a handsome crossover.

If Ford decided Lincoln needed a mid-engine Halo car they'd just do it, same as Toyota deciding Lexus needed the LFA. The Pantera name has only a tenuous connection to Ford in the general population's perception, and even less so to Lincoln. Not worth it to the Oval to try to bring it back.

Yep, it is straight filthy and I love it.

Will it have the Elvis Blue interior from the concept, though?

Shame there's no crate FPC mill, though obviously keeping it a GT350 exclusive is important. I remember after the 5L Cammer crate motors hit I ran into one of the Powerblock guys from Spike at a car show and just about begged him to do a project car with one. Eventuay they did an F5 '33 with a Coyote.

2 pieces of really good news there, charging and range improvement.

Ford doesn't ship cars to Australia in containers, it charters Ro/Ro car carriers. The individual cost of each car isn't huge, but the load for each trip to Oz has been planned out carefully in advance. Even if they had the inventory to surge to Australia in response to this backlog, disrupting the shipping schedule can get real real costly. Especially if it means chartering an additional ship.

There's probably no small amount of transpac shipping maths in this. Each ship only has so much room for all the vehicles Ford want to ship to Oz, the order backlog has to be weighed against the cost of chartering an additional Ro/Ro.