I don't believe they'll be able to drop the price significantly. What would help is sharing the coupe platform with a mustang sedan, which we know is the plan for now, with the goal of stabilizing prices even if they don't reduce them. Sharing the platform with multiple vehicles would also in theory make it easier to invest more in the mustang moving forward.
For the prices the gt and above are now selling for, I personally believe an effort should be made to give the mustang more seductive proportions. Longer wheelbase, shorter rear, and much shorter front overhangs. Maybe push the a-pillar back an inch or two. Lower the roof maybe 2 inches, and the beltline by an inch. Keep the strong haunches, and accentuate the fastback rooflines.
The s650 is a good looking car, but the size of the overhangs drive me nuts, I'd love to see whatever came next keep the 60s inspiration, but push the wheels to the corners more. Give it larger, more eye catching wheels as well.
Basically just minor tweaks here and there to make an already good looking model even better looking to help justify the higher price tag. The s650 in well equipped gt form is a 55-60 grand car with the same basic shape and proportions to an s550 that was 30 grand new. Casual car buyers don't notice that, hard core sports car enthusiasts do.
I don't know how flexible the hard points on the s650 chassis are, but assuming they're making a sedan using that chassis, it seems like there's a fair amount of flexibility with the dimensions.
I paid $79,000 for a fully loaded BRaptor when it first came out. It skyrocketed after that destroying its value proposition as far as I’m concerned. The same goes for the Wildtrack.
Mondeo and Lincoln Nautilus.
Territory has been largely been limited to export to middle income countries that Ford doesn't consider key markets. With Ford Taiwan starting production of Territory, I'm sure it points to the model making its way to other high income countries to replace Kuga/Escape - e.g. Australia is probably going to get it sooner or later.
I believe the “Hemi” name has value to their customers, but also think it goes well beyond that. As discussed in other threads, there are still a lot of truck buyers which prefer a naturally-aspirated large-displacement pushrod engine. Chevy doesn’t have a “Hemi” per se but sells a ton of pushrod V8s even though they may use a bit more gas. And Ford with Godzilla brought back high-displacement NA pushrod to Super Duty. And to be clear, I’m not arguing whether it should be this way or not, just that RAM is not alone in having to deal with demand for these “old school” engines.
FYI: Chrysler apparently had a Hemi-6 inline engine in Australia a long time ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Hemi-6_Engine
Truck buyers want so much power today that it may be hard to get from a naturally aspirated I-6 Hemi, especially if limited to around 3-liter Hurricane architecture.
Give Chrysler all the credit in the world in making the hemi monicker theirs. Pure marketing genius.
But, the hemi-head design dates back to 1905. A Belgium automaker called Pipe was the first to use a hemispherical combustion chamber on a four cylinder, Fiat followed suit in 1907. Chrysler brought out theirs in 1951.
Maybe just the way it appears to you because I refuse to see the world in a binary, all-or-nothing, black-and-white way. If you’re looking for rigid and inflexible thinking, I’m not it.
I prefer open minded, pragmatic, and independent thinking; and not just following party lines. That includes the ability to see items and issues objectively from all sides and accepting they have both good and bad qualities. When I describe good and bad features of BEVs, as an example, I’m not flip flopping. It’s honesty and making a more comprehensive assessment that may appear contradictory to some.
Completely agree and recall posting a very long time ago that forcing sovereign nations to truly cooperate was going to be next to impossible because at the end of the day humans tend to prioritize what’s best for them. It’s similar problem that makes socialism ineffective in creating high productivity. When your efforts and hard work are distributed equally to the masses, you say screw it, why should I work any harder than absolutely necessary if my effort is diluted to the point it doesn’t help me enough to be worth it. IMO reducing “global” GHGs has similar issue in that if we in USA see that our efforts go for naught because China or India or whatever offsets our efforts, and worse if to their advantage in doing so, we will stop trying. Similarly, everyone else will reduce their efforts as well. I personally don’t see a solution other than some future new technology that would be beneficial to all nations, independent of them getting onboard or not.