GearheadGrrrl

Good points- Makes sense to discontinue a product when it can't even keep one assembly line busy, needs too much capital investment, and that capital investment won't be rewarded. But Ford is still the 2nd most recognized tractor brand after John Deere and if Ford hadn't exited that market they'd be making profits on tractors like John Deere is. L series had just had a major investment and while not very profitable then, now that there's only 4 big truck makers left in this market Ford could be reeling in those profits instead of giving them to Daimler.

Daytona road course.

Ford's doing very well at Daytona in the prelims to the 24 hour, last I saw one of the GT3 Mustangs had set fastest qualifying time and today Luca Mars GT4 Mustang won the GSX class in the first VP Fuels 45 minute race. Mustang Dark Horse continues to get great media reviews with Road&Track finding the Dark Horse can turn slighting faster lap times that a Porsche 911 cost twice as much.

NHRA is very similar to autox/rallyx- Mostly amateurs with middle class budgets having fun with cars. NASCAR and LeMans/WEC is pretty much pros while IMSA has some wealthy amateurs too. The pro and wealthy amateur racing series teams can afford to lay out a quarter million and up for a race car and even more for a transporter, parts, tools, travel, etc. every year. But they're a small market of probably less than a thousand cars a year that are often subcontracted out to outside shops to build anyways. That works for Ferrari and it's icing on the cake for Porsche, but Ford have several factories to keep busy at around a vehicle a minute pace and payroll for over 100,000 to meet, so Ford needs more customers than a few dozen racing teams. SCCA is the major sanctioning body for autox and their national championship brings 1300 entries every year with more turned away and they've got 55,000 members who buy a lot of cars- That's nothing to sneeze at and they've been keeping Mazda who makes a major effort to cater to this market profitably busy. You'd think Ford would want some of that business...

I watch NASCAR once in a while... If there's no road racing or rallies to watch and the weather sucks! Honestly, between crashes NASCAR is boring- Spec cars no matter what front and rear clip tries to make them a Mustang, Camaro, or Camry and intake restrictors in case anybody builds a better engine. Lap after boring lap of driving around in circles until somebody sneezes and takes out half the cars...

That strategy works until you have to pay for autoworkers and factories that aren't building cars.

I've got no problem with Ford making "passion" vehicles that sell for six figure prices- The profits can subsidize lower priced and even boring vehicles for the rest of us. But Mr. Farley needs to remember that he's got a bunch of factories and thousands of workers to keep busy...

Ford's most boring vehicles are the F series, hope Farley doesn't make them "go away".

Expensive to start with and then too many dealers added markups and chased buyers away. Same thing has happened with VW's Golf R- Dealers got greedy and now they've got a thousand plus unsold units.

Chasing away customers willing to buy a profitable product isn't a viable business strategy.

I was impressed, until I remembered that as an autocross/rallycross enthusiast Ford has nothing for me- Mustang V8 is too thirsty to double as a daily driver, the Ecoboost 4 gets thrown in the same autocross class as the lighter AWD Golf R, and up north Mustangs become garage queens for half the year. Everything else Ford builds today has too high a center of gravity. If Ford expects Ford racing to turn a profit, they'll have to produce a product the thousands of us amateur racers will buy.

XL versions of the Transit Connect can do that fold down trick, but strangely enough the higher trim versions lost that ability.

Bought most of my Ford holdings for less than $2 share back in the "Great Recession", been gradually selling it off for 5+ times that.

I know Ford's target market is seniors, but they really need to let go of half century and older model names... Only us old car geeks know what a Capri was!

Hey, it ain't like they're developing an EV that shares next to nothing with any existing product and will only sell 50K a year...

In the worldwide market Ford should be in the top 5 sellers, but will probably get beat out for first by the Corolla or RAV4 and share the top five with the Tesla Model Y and another Toyota. Depends a lot too on how related vehicles are grouped or not, if you include GMs pickups as one they may beat out Ford. But still quite a marketing accomplishment for Ford and GM, given that in most of the world market their full size pickups aren't even available.

And provide a beachhead for the Chinese...?

My 2022 XL Passenger doesn't have them, looks like they'd be a tight fit in there.

Funny how Euro cars like my VWs and even Ford Transit Connect come with height adjustable seats on even the cheapest trims, while the North American models like F150 make you spend thousands extra for a feature that should be standard.

No grumpiness, just reality- About the narrowest sidecar outfits are Urals at 1700 mm. or about 67 inches, F150 and other full size pickups are about 50 inches between the wheel wells. Thus trailering works better for sidecar outfits and they're light enough that just about anything with four wheels can tow them.

Won't fit in an F150 either.

Read the 2024 Michigan SP tests and while the F150 has improved, it and the other BOF trucks are still a couple seconds slower on the road course than the PI Explorer. Ford's Mach E was faster than it initially was, maybe they solved the overheating problem so it can deliver more than 5 seconds of full power, GM brought a similar EV with similar results.

jpd80, thanks for the clarification- The "Kia Boyz" will be laughing their asses of at the upside down F150 squad that just chased them, but the engine will be just fine! Kirby, Before 2017 it was a "Special Service Vehicle", looks like not much changed except the name.

I remember when it was introduced and Ford discouraged using it for pursuit.

Thanks Rick 73! A pickup will probably do just fine as a gas guzzling patrol car 99% of the time. The problems will come when officers get into heated pursuits and forget or don't know that they shouldn't try to keep up with a Mustang through the corners. Ford probably got brave and pursuit rated the F150 after GM pursuit rated their jacked up 2" more pickup, both will probably be facing billion dollar class action lawsuits for rollover crash injuries and deaths in these trucks in a few years.