Yes, offering air brakes on gas powered 650/750's seems like such a no-brainer. That option probably wouldn't set the world on fire sales-wise but one would think that the incremental sales increase air brakes would likely generate would justify the cost of offering it. And, you may recall Ford showing pictures of a 650/750 trimmed 7.3L engine with an air brake compressor on it, so Ford did spend time and money to engineer it. Since it would appear Ford has dropped the idea completely I wonder if the current 650 and 750 are on the way out.
BTW, has anyone seen the 2027 650/750 order guide yet? Ford is doing yet another early start model year on these trucks and according to my sources production of the 2027's starts on 01/26/2026.
I thought so as well, maybe the guy I talked to didn't realize that. But for the bronco reveal, a rtr version makes sense. Not related to this but he attended some dealer meetings and confirmed other product info like the mustang sedan is a stretched s650 instead of being its own design, and that ev truck patent image is really close to the CE1 truck design. Apparently it will have a lot of accessories.
Again, not related to this, but just some other interesting product tidbits while we're discussing future product.
So if the Ranger is tapped out, how is an unibody cheaper/less capable truck going to all of sudden sell more then what the Ranger does? Why is Ford going to spend all that engineering money on a brand new product that is basically going to be an ICE powered CE1? A new Midsized pickup would also require a wider width. The Ranger is like 75 and the Maverick is 72-not sure C1 can support a wider product like that
It make ZERO sense.
Notice the graphic below says truck-but its also completely inconstant-the F-150 EREV isn't called a truck, the CE1 isn't called a truck either. "affordable" is nebulous. To be honest the line describing the new product at TTP is a word salad IMO
The only thing that MAY make sense is that they move the next gen Maverick production to TTP, which would check all the bullet points. That would make much more sense then making a bigger unibody truck that would be turned down by people in that market because its not a "real truck"...and BOF is easier to build then unibody...and I'd assume cheaper. They get around the tariff issues that way too.
They sold 155k Mavericks vs 71k Rangers last year. I think Ranger is tapped out as far as sales at a reasonable profit margin.
But a unibody ranger that can be sold for $5K less and at a higher margin and double the volume makes all the sense in the world if they can pull it off.
Nothing else makes sense to me for a "new affordable pickup"
I still call bullshit on this-people aren't going to buy a Ford Ridgeline...and it makes zero sense to spend all that development money chasing a market that is already been filled by another product or something that has its engineering paid by ROW...plus the Ranger WAS the reason the Bronco came back.
I still see zero benefit to adding a unibody vehicle to replace the Ranger...you'd be better off using that money on something else.