https://www.chasingcars.com.au/news/future-cars/ford-wants-to-build-raptor-t1-supercar-declaring-off-roaders-have-overtaken-mustang-and-hot-hatches-as-its-most-important-performance-vehicles/   Another article on this. I am curious to see what sort of product Farley is envisioning here when he talks about making an affordable aspirational enthusiast product that blends on and off-road performance in a way no-one has seen before. That kinda sounds like a mustang raptor, but I don't envision the mustang raptor as being a super affordable product. Whatever it is, it sounds intriguing.    Other notes include the importance of keeping mustang alive, and their off-road supercar, which he says will "break all the rules" and they're working on figuring out the details right now, like what silhouette it'll have. I'm hopeful Ford's partnered with Hameedi Venturo on it, I've mentioned why I think there's a chance of that being the case in the past. If they are partnered with HV, this thing is gonna be awesome.    A ground up super/hypercar with a hypercar silhouette with suspension tech that allows for substantial ride height variations sounds promising. 

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2026/2027-super-duty-answers-customer-requests

They have talked about doing that off-road supercar with potential raptor branding. I could also see maybe a super duty, bronco sport, or mustang raptor depending on how far they want to take it. 

A Raptor Transit??  

Very true, we had a handful of extremely passionate Sport/ST buyers. Even did some simple custom graphics for one of our Edge ST buyers, he loved the logo and wanted it on his windshield, so we made him a couple vinyls of the ST logo. Edge definitely needed a hybrid, and even a slightly de-tuned 2.7 for the high Titanium packages as an available would have been nice. The things that could have been...

F-650 Raptor?

But the industry data doesn't support that theory.   A lot of people are also trading up to a Maverick from a small car.  Yes some are downsizing but large truck sales aren't going down so just as many are also trading up.   You're not wrong that some are doing that, just not enough to say it's an industry trend

I think everything is being a little biased here, but I'm referencing the success of things like that maverick. 15 years ago, Ford would have told you there's no market for a compact, affordable truck in the N. American market. Were they lying or is that genuinely what they believed, that's up to you to decide, but that was what they were claiming. People didn't think a small, affordable truck would sell in high volume, even leading up to the Maverick's release I recall a considerable portion of people who were skeptical, and thought it would flop. Instead it became Ford's most successful release of the 2020s thus far imo.    Because it's just a good product. It's not trying to be everything, it's just trying to be enough. It's not insanely powerful, it can't tow a lot of weight, it can't go off-road, but it doesn't have to in order to appeal to people. It's just a sensible, reliable, efficient, and affordable vehicle. We need to get away from this mindset of vehicles needing to be and do everything, and get back to what we actually need and use.    As the maverick has proven, that often takes the form of smaller, more affordable vehicles, and that includes other categories like small crossovers and cars. 

Thank you. That's what I'm getting at, I understand where Akirby and Sherm are coming from, but I'm arguing there are generational differences in terms of needs, preferences, taste, and so on. It's not a case of one side is right and the other is wrong, it's just different groups with different perspectives. 

Where is the data for this? Affordable is a nebulous term-   Affordable to one person might mean a 20K vehicle and to another a 40K vehicle and that has sometimes very little to do with income levels.    Automakers can't or it is very difficult to make money on a 20K car. Once you get cheap, it can turn customers off from buying, unless they can only buy that. That type of customer isn't best in Ford's eyes.    The major reason why smaller cars in the 1980s sold so well was they where offsetting CAFE regs of the era. But the big 3 wasn't make much if anything off them.    I think your biases are showing through, because after following the industry for almost 30 years now, there hasn't been a major shift in what is popular in vehicle type and if there was, it was temporary and snaped back.    Then don't forget about marketing etc that affects buyers purchases when it comes to vehicles also.