bzcat

And 4,576 Transit Connect... another month with over 4,000 deliveries. Ford is banging on all cylinders on the van market. MKC looks good in isolation... sold 2,289 units, up 238% over May 2014 (launch month). But Lexus sold over 4,000 NX this month... Lincoln has much more homework to do to expand sales. I'm beginning to think Ford is going to "ranger" the Taurus. Those sales numbers are not healthy!

Not the first time Flat Rock build RHD cars (Probe and Cougar were both RHD too)... I'm sure they have it figured out.

We don't know the % of new 200 that went to daily rental fleet sales yet because 2014 data not yet available. But probably still significant given that it was a large part of FCA's business in the midsize market. The old 200 was a rental queen based on % of overall sales... but in 2013, Nissan Altima was the biggest rental fleet seller. 2013 midsize car daily rental sales / % of total sales Nissan Altima 69,864 / 22% Toyota Camry 52,941 / 13% Chrysler 200 51,606 / 42% Chevy Malibu 50,902 / 26% Ford Fusion 43,387 / 15% Hyundai Sonata 38,133 / 19% Dodge Avenger 29,485 / 31% Kia Optima 19,375 / 12% VW Passat 9,823 / 9% Total FCA 81,091 / 37%

You don't put your most profitable programs on hold while perusing a merger. You put the least profitable programs on ice and hope to write it off right after the merger. This whole delaying programs for possible merger is a smokescreen. FCA's cash position must be in really bad shape.

And you will pay $30k for that basic 2 door aluminum Ranger with no frills? And your statement tells me you have no idea how CAFE footprint multiplier works. F-150 has a much lower CAFE target due to the footprint. The curve is not linear... at the size of Ranger, Ford will have to deliver close to 50MPG by 2025 to make it CAFE positive vs. something like 32MPG for F-150. The X-axis is footprint in sq ft, the Y-axis is targeted MPG for CAFE. Ranger standard cab was around 40 sq ft

https://www.fordpartner.com/partnerweb/login.do or https://www.myplan.ford.com/myplanweb/login.do You can pull the A plan invoice yourself I don't think the dealer was trying to scam the OP. I think OP doesn't actually understand how A-plan works: A-plan price (should be near invoice) - holdbacks - all applicable retail rebates and incentives = actual sales price

There is another issue that Ranger fans won't acknowledge. Selling more Ranger means a bigger hit to Ford's CAFE due to its small footprint.

That's how I see it too. Although one could argue that Canyorado is GM's insurance against 2017 CAFE because they really believed Ford's F-150 aluminum pursuit was going to fail - and/or they can see that they cannot keep up the investment race to light-weight their fullsize truck in a reasonable timeframe to meet 2017 CAFE.

And it's also nearly impossible to execute given the fuel economy requirements and customer demand that it be significantly cheaper than the fullsize.

Current Transit Custom, Chinese Spec, and the Spy photo from first page. Compare and contrast... and draw your own conclusions. I'm not discounting the possibility of mid cycle update but it is really early for it by historical standards... Previous Transit didn't receive mid cycle updates after 3 model years. It could be mid cycle update or maybe just the pre-production Chinese spec, or perhaps a attribute mule for the US market. Who knows.

There is no current compact pickup truck market. The market disappeared because not enough people wanted a compact pickup truck. Fleets don't want them and retail buyers drifted towards CUVs or larger pickups.

TC is in fleets everywhere. You are just seeing what you want to see. Ford was averaging 60k units of Ranger sales in the last 5 years of production. Ford is on pace to sell about 50k TC this year. That means Ford has kept almost the entire fleet business from Ranger and transitioned them to TC. The sales that Ford lost was the bottom feeding retail Ranger buyers that just wanted something cheap.

On the one hand, the reason all the pony cars are still around because babyboomers are buying them... hence all the recycled 60s names. On the other hand, the future of Mustang (Camaro and Challenger too) are with younger buyers. Mustang in particular is going to carry the Ford performance flag overseas too; so it makes sense to do something new. Perhaps Ford will do both.

I'm no Mustang historian... but the original Mach 1 name was basically a GT but in fastback body (i.e. no Mach 1 coupe or convertible). And later on, it was mostly just a graphic package on the 71~73 Mustang and the late 70s Mustang II (e.g. you could have Mach 1 with various engine choices, including some rather slow ones). So I think it is ok to use that name for a 2.7 EB V6 model that fits between 2.3 EB and 5.0 V8. The Boss name was originally tied to specific homologation engine options, not performance trim level per se as there was no "GT" during the early 70s when the original Boss 302 and 429 ruled the tracks. But there is some sentimental argument For Boss being above GT - which is why a 3.5 EB V6 with higher performance than the 5.0 V8 is perfect for the Boss name - it recalls the original Boss 302 which had higher performance than the bigger 351 and 390 V8 Mustangs.

That's the GT500, which will be back later. GT350 will not have that kind of power. I'm guessing ~515 hp.

Who said anything about low cost tender? Commercial fleet sales are typically very lucrative for Ford. I was the one who first pointed out Colorado vs. Express 1500 to illustrate the tradeoff GM made (it may have been this thread or one of the dozen other Ranger threads), and why you couldn't just apply GM's strategy on Ford. But thanks for paying attention and following the discussion... Transit Custom is not a minivan. It is a purpose build commercial van. And packaged correctly, it will be a very serious threat to midsize pickup trucks.

CAFE is supposedly a concern because 8,500 lbs is the cut off the light duty vehicle CAFE. But that didn't force GM from pulling out of the light duty pickup truck market... GM made a choice and they decided to give up on vans to Ford and instead tried to open a new flank with midsize truck. The interesting angle to watch here is how the fleet market responds. Right now GM is basking in pent up retail demand on the Colorado and it's a good story for them to tell. What happens 3 years from now when the demand flattens then drop out? No one can make profit selling a pickup truck or van in the US without a robust fleet operation and healthy fleet sales volume... that's the bottom line. Ford Explorer Sportrac was a mainly retail only "lifestyle" truck... and how long did that last? 7 model years? How about Chevy Avalanche? 7 model years? Go back and study the Explorer Sportrac sales numbers... and i think you can predict how the Colorado sales will go if GM continue selling it as a "lifesytle" truck. Even Toyota, the reigning king of the segment, does a fairly high volume of fleet on Tacoma. But will fleet continue to buy midsize truck if they are offered a better alternative? That's why I think Ford is going to respond with a midsize van. Because that's where the meaty end of the market is and It plays into Ford's strength. Ford must be hearing a lot of feedback from their Transit Connect customers who largely transitioned from the Ranger.

Because fleet buyers prefer vans, and fleet buyers are a lot more important than retail buyers in this size category for Ford. The reason compact pickup trucks went extinct was because fleet buyers said no to them. And midsize pickup trucks are lacking in van alternatives now. Ford already successfully replaced the compact Ranger pickup with Transit Connect. The midsize Transit Custom could do the same for Ford in the midsize category... leaving the competitors in the dust.

I don't recall that but it makes plenty of sense. I think 5.0 V8 is going to stay in the Mustang in the "GT" for a long time to come. But Ford will use the EB V6s to periodically offer something that may or may not exceed 5.0 V8 in stated output. Mustang is the kind of car that will constantly need "special editions" to keep up show room traffic and sales volume so I'd expect EB V6 limited editions throughout the life of the model. Also keep in mind of timing... it's likely that EB V6 Mustang will not appear until the 10 speed auto are phased in on F-150 due to engine/drivetrain/emission development needs on the F-150 - make sense that Mustang will piggy back on F-150 rather than the other way around. I think we'll probably see some EB V6 models tuned to fit between 2.3 EB and 5.0 V8 and some that will exceed 5.0 V8 performance. For example... 2.3 EB Base 310hp/320lb-ft >> 2.7 EB Mach 1 350hp/350lb-ft (it's 325/375 on F-150 but that is tuned for fuel economy and truck duty) 5.0 V8 GT 435hp/400lb-ft >> 3.5 EB Boss 450hp/400lb-ft (estimated) 5.2 V8 GT350 500hp/425lb-ft (estimated) 5.2 V8 supercharged? GT500 660+hp/630+lb-ft (estimated based on where the last GT500 left off) Other special edition names still on the shelf: Bullit, SVO, Cobra... you can see that Ford has a lot of options to choose from.

Tiny - Transit Courier (Fiesta platform) Small - Transit Connect (Focus platform) Medium - Transit Custom (FWD) Large - Transit (FWD/RWD/AWD) In Europe, the passenger version is call Tourneo (+Courier/Connect/Custom, depending on size) but in the US, both passenger and cargo version use the Transit name. Got it?

This is potentially Ford's answer to the Colorado and Canyon: http://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/index.php?/topic/59007-ford-transit-custom-coming-to-the-us/

http://www.tfltruck.com/2015/05/is-this-the-2017-ford-transit-custom-commercial-van-spied/ A Transit Custom test mule was spotted in Colorado. Too soon for facelift for Europe so this is not a mid-cycle update - so the new headlights is curious... The most obvious conclusion is that it has revised headlight to comply with DOT requirements in the US. But again, just a guess.

Fusion hybrid still sells pretty strongly. C-Max hybrid is the one that is struggling and that has to do with the fact that it is a tall wagon and Americans just don't like the form factor. So without tax credits (for C-Max Energi), the regular C-Max is a tough sell on merits... people would rather be seen in a Prius than a dorky tall wagon. My opinion is that Ford really outsmarted themselves on the C-Max, thinking they can create a hybrid-only nameplate in North America out of a tall wagon. Should have just made a Focus hybrid / Focus Energi, or stuck with Escape hybrid / Escape Energi. And the continue lack of MKZ PHEV is puzzling as well...

Yep... I wouldn't bet against F-250 and F-350 with 3.5 EB The real question is whether F-450 and F-550 will get it... probably not is my guess.

Suburban has Escalade to help pay the cost of development. Expedition nearly died if Navigator didn't get a reprieve with it. Ram is too downmarket to compete with Cadillac in the lux ute market and FCA lacks a suitable brand to offer something similar to Escalade or Navigator. And even if they can sell it, FCA is too truck heavy for CAFE to really build a fullsize body on frame SUV. In order to make it CAFE neutral, FCA will have to make it really light (lots of aluminum) and/or with very fancy drivetrain. Bottom line... the math doesn't work for FCA on fullsize Ram based SUV the way it does for GM and Ford. Durango is dead man walking right now. The model is trapped in North America and limps along with a Dodge badge that is more baggage than asset. Slap a Jeep grill on next Durango and call it Grand Wagoneer, and FCA can charge more money for it in the US, and sell the vehicle overseas as a Jeep. It's a no braniner. The way Sergio is speaking, it sound like to me that this is the plan: 1. Grand Cherokee moves up market i.e. eliminate the bargain basement Laredo trim (currently $30k MSRP); Limited becomes the new base model, follow up Overland and Summit. Move ATP up ~$10k in aggregate with something above the Summit trim level, perhaps with a new sub-brand like GMC's Denali treatment. I'm thinking $40k~$80k price range (but most importantly, ATP moves from low $40k to high $40k). 2. Grand Wagoneer replaces Durango in North America, Jeep returns to 3-row SUV market. Same up-market trim levels as Grand Cherokee. I'm thinking $45k~$90k price range. 3. A LWB Grand Wagoneer (with a new name?), perhaps marketed under the sub-brand name only that will be priced above Grand Cherokee and Grand Wagoneer. I'm thinking $70k~$100k price range.