Par   Perhaps I should say things weren't cheap, or affordable, but they were more affordable than they were now is a more accurate assessment. I just believe we're due for a correction with a lot of consumer goods, cars and homes being the most obvious ones.    My folks bought a 7 bedroom three story home in the suburbs outside of Salt Lake for 390 in 2012. Today, that house is worth about 750, at its peak it was over 900 because everyone is moving to Utah, why someone would want to move to Utah, I have no idea lol. But things have just increased so much in value that I don't believe it's sustainable long term.    My grandparents purchased a home in Seattle back in the 60s for about 20k. They recently sold that home for 1.4 million. Off the top of my head, I want to say adjusting for inflation, they paid the equivalent of about 250-300 grand for it. It's a nice house, but no way should it be worth 1.4 million even if it's in a nice area. 

Not directly.  I don’t believe Ford would have cancelled Edge just for Super Duty.  But once the 3 row EVs were killed they had to find something.

Car And Driver.com

I bought a 98 Mustang GT when I got out of the Army, that i saved for over 4 years, including a 10 month deployment to Bosnia    Trust me, it wasn't "affordable", but I gave up other things to have it. My income when I got out dropped nearly in half due to me going to school full time and I also went into the Army Guard to help pay car insurance on it.    Looking at the past is often with rose colored glasses without any nuance. Its like my parents buying a house for $26K in 1972 and having a $300 a month mortgage payment, but only making $5 bucks an hour at the time. It was only "cheap" 20 years later when my dad was making $65K a year or $30 an hour. 

That's true, but maybe Ford is to blame here to a degree by not providing the right sort of products. I won't deny most Ford sedan buyers aren't passionate enthusiasts, but that could be because the products themselves didn't evoke a ton of passion.    It's kinda like how decades ago, small trucks gradually lost their appeal. For years and years, all we heard was how there was no business case for the return of small affordable trucks, and how they'd fail if they made a return. But the maverick has proved all those people wrong. I'd argue it's because the maverick isn't just some half baked POS, it's actually a good vehicle with real effort put into it. It brought unique ideas to the table, like offering a hybrid powertrain so it could equal and surpass the fuel economy of most small cars.    The small affordable truck segment was even more dead in the states than sedans are, yet with the right product, the right sort of differentiation, and the right timing, they made a comeback. I understand what you and Akirby are saying, but I'm a firm believer that nothing is forever in the automotive world, and with the right product, and the right approach, past ideas can be revived in a way that helps a company thrive. 

the passionate buyers for sedans didn't save them from shrinking numbers either, which would indicate the people aren't the passionate or care that much. 

So the Edge is getting replaced by the Super Duty 😛  

I think young people are still interested in driving, and passionate about cars, heck, I'm one of them. But there's not a lot out here for us. I mean, what did young people in the 60s, or the 90s have? A ton of relatively affordable enthusiasts cars to buy.    What do younger car enthusiasts really have today? A bunch of white jelly bean crossovers. Sure, you have the mustang Ecoboost, but most dealers I've seen option those into the 40s. Not to mention there's negative stereotypes surrounding the ecoboost that hurts its appeal. People don't want to buy a mustang and constantly have to defend it from people asking why they didn't buy a V8.    You have the Miata, and gr86, two cars that are the size of a shoebox, and I believe those cars are two seater only, meaning insurance is gonna be pretty hefty for young buyers. Not to mention the gr86 seems to have a lot of reliability issues.    There aren't a ton of fun affordable enthusiasts products on the market, and most of the ones you'll find are horrifically compromised in one way or another. I firmly believe the affordable, fun, reliable new car segment is horrifically underserved at the moment. There's an argument to be had that maverick and bronco sport are the best models currently in the market when it comes to serving this need, though I've heard the BS reliability is a little iffy.    I don't believe Ford should stop at maverick and BS. They have lightning in a bottle with these fun, affordable, compact cars, and I want to see them keep pushing the idea, and see what other sorts of products it leads to. That's why I'm so passionate about c2 and CE1, because if executed well, they lay the foundation for a whole lineup of fun affordable cars making a return, something we haven't seen in decades.    I firmly believe Ford could dominate the affordable aspirational vehicle market if they act swiftly. 

Valid points, but I don't think it's a monolith. As is the case with most other product segments, I believe there are sedan buyers who are very passionate, sedan buyers who couldn't care less and will just buy the cheapest product, and most people who fall somewhere in-between.    We often talk about the shortcomings of Ford sedans. But they were never really anything special, the fusion and Tarus had some bright spots for sure, but as a whole package, they never really had that extra spice that turned them into must have products.    Even the Tarus sho and high performance fusions, yeah they were fast, but beyond that, in terms of design, in terms of tech, they didn't do much to stand out from the run of the mill variants of those cars.    We know now most people who want fun cars for instance want those cars to look interesting. Most buyers don't want sleepers. It's a pretty comparable issue to what the Chevy ss had where the performance was solid, but it looked like a bland, generic sedan, and that was a turn off for a lot of people. 

But Edge was not replaced by Mach E or Bronco - it coexisted with them for several years.  The factory replacement for Edge was the 3 row EVs which never happened.