True, but what made the maverick so special was it was a return to the small, affordable mini truck. Something consumers hadn't seen in some time. We have a lot of small affordable crossovers, including many boxy ones.    I think Ford's starting to rethink their icons strategy slightly. 

It’s going to “Maverick like” from the B pillar forward. Maverick does not fall into the boring commodity category, so maybe that is the rationale.

But wasn’t the Escape or a compact size suv a commodity product? They decided to kill it just to make the comeback 2-3 years later? 

It's a tricky subject. On one hand, some trims of the ranger are certainly iconic, like the raptor. Others, not so much.    I see a bronco truck as a case of building on the strenths of the ranger, and ditching the weaknesses, making it an even more compelling product than ranger. Getting rid of something good in favour or something better. 

Interesting. For some time, Ford shot down any product that they saw as a commodity. That included the escape. What are they executing differently with this product to justify it being part of the no boring products mantra?    We could say hybrid, but the escape offered a hybrid and Farley viewed it as a commodity. Is it the bolder styling, or something else we don't know about yet that really makes it an aspirational product?

Personally, I got a shock reading about a 2.7L valve failure. Catastrophic result. No indication, regularly serviced. It does happen.

Another reason is back in the early stages of NANO. The 2.7L would eventually give way to the 3.0L after Lincoln had it first. I would have loved to swap the 2.7 out of my old Fusion for the MKZ 3.0L from the MKZ.

That was just a production code. The Fathom was listed as “Maverick EV” on that report, it was a placeholder. The “Escape” EV likewise is probably a placeholder for the UEV C-segment crossover, which if I had to guess will be called the Fuze or perhaps the Mythic.   At this point with how much Ford clearly hates the Escape, I would be surprised if they reuse the name on UEV. The cheap crossover is likelier, because if they’re gonna have a shitty boring car it might as well be cheap.

Wasn’t escape also being thrown around for the compact suv on the uev platform?   All of those other names are terrible by the way 😂. I can’t wait to hear the AI generated story of how they came up with those.

Essentially yes. But no the Flex name will not be returning. It does not fit this vehicle at all. Remember this is a $25,000 small SUV. 5 passenger only, no 3 rows.   I don’t know what name is in the running for this but the rumors have been:   Maverick Sport Explorer Sport Escape   Again it is very Ford SUV like. Not Ford Bronco like. Think Maverick, current Explorer and original Escape mixed together.    This little SUV will be a critical and very focused product with very high volume expectations. It will be the new entry level vehicle for Ford.