GearheadGrrrl

Average family size has shrunk by about one since the 1950s to about 2.5, so the market for 3 row vehicles is shrinking as families of 5+ become rarer. The need for AWD or 4WD is decreasing too as more Americans are living in cities in the south where mud and snow capability is less important. Americans are still feeding their fantasies by buying jacked up 6+ seat pickups and SUVs, but rising prices are tempering those fantasy motivated buying choices.

Back to our subject, pickups and BOF SUVs face existential challenges- For a start, affordability- And even if you decontent a BOF pickup/SUV down to the barebones they were decades ago, they're still gonna cost more to build than a unit body FWD sedan/hatch. And for the customers that still buy 'em, where ya gonna park 'em? Even in the suburbs garages are shrinking and vehicles have to share them with lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc.. And in the cities? You're lucky to get a driveway.

Agreed on the death of motorcycling- I've got nine motorcycles and nine heirs, and only one can ride a motorcycle and he's the oldest!

Why hobble a decent medium duty truck with a pickup bed? Fit it with a flatbed with side kit, tool boxes, etc. and have a versatile truck that can outwork any pickup!

Yes, strategically it would be great to have more factories. But will they produce a profit to pay off the bonds and please the shareholders? Probably not- Ford and many other manufacturers already have adequate capacity and building more plants than needed just soaks up CapEx that's better spent on updating and improving the product.

Had Bloomberg on all day and even the Trump supporting execs they interviewed thought Trump had gone too far. Was good to see Trump retreat a bit, but new plants are billion dollar 50 year investments that can't be made when Trump changes his mind on tariffs every day.

Nebraska Tractor Tests used to review trucks advertised for tractor work like Jeep, Land Rover, and Unimog. They didn't do too well against real tractors because they simply didn't have the low speed gearing and suspension reacting to ground engagement loads probably didn't help either. That said, for light tractor work it'll probably work OK.

Was looking at a Golf R and price jumped up over $3K overnight, hearing that BMWs are selling fast.

Auto industry is already in an affordability crisis with new car loans over $1K, and now Trump dumps this on them! Ford and GM will be hurt worse than the Asian makers as even in full size pickups almost all are assembled or have powertrains from Mexico or Canada. $100K for a Super duty and $60K for a fleet trim pickup is going to be a hard sell!

IIRC F150 EV reservations vaporized in a similar manner. Looks like many customers made reservations for several brands of EV vaporware and then bought the one that was actually realized in 3D first or just plain lost interest...

Not Cummins' 1st gas engine- They offered a "Giesel" gas spark ignited version of their small diesel V8 in the 1960s.

Problem is the automation, not the employees- USPS top management has closed lots of regional sorting centers so now a package going 5 miles between towns goes 500 miles to a massive sorting center and back. Get a misscan somewhere in there and the package can take a cross country detour. Worked for USPS for 15 years and the workers had to do a lot of workarounds to avoid these mail detours, for example we would manually route mail directly between those adjoining towns so time critical stuff like notices, church bulletins, and ads for local businesses made it to local mailboxes before the event.

Ford hasn't seriously pitched anything to militaries in years, and there's plenty of other competitors in that space. Heck, even GM is further along than Ford in military products!

Agreed- The "Chicken Tax" has stifled innovation and jacked prices for trucks in our country, extending that insane tax to all vehicles will result in maybe 4 manufacturers surviving and Ford, GM, and Harley probably won't be one of them.

Read through all of Ford's literature and especially the order guides, you've got a lot of options with the Transit that will determine your satisfaction with the van. Also helps to find a very helpful dealer and salesperson who has experience speccing Transits that can guide you through all the choices.