I was expecting to see a seam or something. That's gonna be super expensive to replace when it gets cracked. You would think they'd have a windshield that large, especially on a fleet vehicle where repair costs are important, be made up of multiple pieces of glass, so you could just replace part of it if there was damage. But I guess not.
I don't know about everyone else here, but my junk mail is getting to be overwhelming. I must be on dozens of lists, and it is worse now in an election year. The ones that are really annoying are the ones that include a check that I'm supposed to be guilted into matching and returning. Others are the 11x14 surveys I get almost weekly.
Many of the non-profits are abusing their special postal rates, and the extra load is a substantial part of what's causing the USPS to do two deliveries per day and sometimes Sunday in some areas. And buy ever bigger trucks to carry it all. I would restrict N-P's to one business size envelope with two pages max and a return envelope to post at a non-profit rate. Any bigger would mail at standard retail rate. With ACH I get very few hard copy bills anymore. My Internet bill is one of the humorous ones. Every bill exhorts me to "Just go Paperless-less waste" etc But usually included is a 6 color flyer inviting me to get premium channels or buy a pay-per view event.
The mind boggles at what rolling stock would be necessary if we didn't have email.
Around here the local dealers can sell an STX 4x4 with a V8 off the transport truck while the optioned out high end trims which can cost up to $20k more sit around. It's not that they don't stock STXs or lower optioned XLTs it's just that they sell fast. Now different areas have different income demographics and different customers. I live in a very rural area and for the country folk they still really like V8s for pickups that end up in small towns or out at the farm or ranch.
I'd say getting the right product/price matters a lot on the local market. Just the fact that RAM and Toyota have completely gotten rid of the V8 option (Not to mention RAM and Toyota have generally lost their mind with pricing) will push some of those customers to Ford or GM products in the 1/2 ton market.
Current trucks started in 1986. So 37 years. Article is off by nearly a decade.
And yes, butt ugly. But they'll have no excuse for not being able to see out the front. I wonder how those will cope with North Dakota winters and heating? Big a$$ windshield can't be easy to keep defrosted.
Ford Dealers get commodity restraints information updates almost daily, but I don't know if those authorized to order vehicles for military personnel have access to that information. The OTD (Order to Delivery) timeframe for F-450's is normally much longer than for the F-250 and F-350 models.