That was obviously going to happen with the initial requirement years ago of any foreign brands having to partner (aka give away trade secrets) with local companies.  But all the companies dove in head-first for mythical profits that either never appeared to begin with and/or have disappeared......

You're the one that keeps bringing it back to life lol.   11 months after the initial batch, and now another 7 months after that....

Per last quarter's sales figures, no, it's not.  Unless they mean the average sales figures?  The vans have traditionally been much lower in the 2700-3200 range until last quarter's 8k outburst.

Yea, exactly. It also underscores what Jimbo was up against when he and the other big shots got the Ford skunkworks operational:  

I have an archival/historical question regarding Lincoln documentation.   I noticed that our Dealer Order Guides section is nearly complete from 2015 onwards, but for model years prior to 2015, almost all Lincoln order guides are absent from the forum—with the rare exceptions being the 2010 MKS and 2010 MKZ.   From a historical and enthusiast perspective, I’m curious why pre-2015 guides are so hard to come by:   Were dealer order guides back in the 2000s and early 2010s primarily distributed on paper/CD-ROM rather than downloadable standalone PDFs on FMCDealer? Or were they available back then, but simply purged from the system over time before digital archiving became the norm?   Thanks for helping preserve Lincoln history!

Well I think that is a given and the EU market is a shitshow right now with the Chinese imports and demographic changes there. I still think long term Ford is going to leave at least the passenger vehicle market in the EU because of all the competition in it. 

I see these Ford mediums everywhere.   Apartment Movers | TWO MEN AND A TRUCK

It looks like they know what they're doing. So why all the recalls?! Interesting to see that the human touch is needed on the little stuff. I noticed when they were attaching the lug nuts on the Fords, they manually spun them a few threads. Are they afraid using an impact tool could cause cross-threading? Don't they have the means to place the lug nuts into a robot controlled device that would line up perfectly? Maybe not. I think the Stellantis segment was made several years ago because of the mask wearing. What might confirm this is that I saw an International on the line behind a GM medium and that joint venture is no longer in effect. Or is it?  I don't think so. 

I think it’s any big corporation. IBM was the same.

yes, thank you both for those two real world examples that show just how entrenched certain corporate business practices can become, moreso the management resistance to change for a number of reasons. And then you get the other types thst love changing things for no apparent reason. I can see how working at Ford would drive people nuts unless they give themselves over to the system.