I’d bet they sell a decent amount of lifestyle versions of this. It’s an untapped market, but what is basically a Bronco Sport with a toy bed might do ok. 

This is a unibody, compact pickup that services a different, even smaller segment.

“Why must it replicate the look of the best selling vehicle in the US?”

Because the Ranger is an actual body on frame truck that already existed in other markets. The Ranger is still smaller than the F150 and matches up nicely against the Tacoma, Colorado, Canyon, Frontier, and sort of Ridgeline. They also sold between 90-100k units of the Ranger in the US in the last two years, it seems…

It’ll be a bit cheaper than the Ranger and get much better mileage. There’s only so much you can cut from the Ranger’s $24k base price, but I think they’re aiming for around $20k?

So it’ll steal sales from the Ranger, but there’s no real demand for it? The Ridgeline is significantly more expensive than this will be. They’re betting it will create new sales that otherwise were priced out of the new pickup market. So nominal used car buyers.

The off center hitch caused some problems.

Would love a two door.

This is a good take. We’ve gotten lower and lower in sedan styling and so crossovers are a bit of a rebellion of that trend.

I see my love-hate relationship with VW is going to continue well into the mid 2020s. Fantastic. But this thing looks incredible, and notwithstanding my angry, semi-coherent, rants about how I’ll NEVER BUY ANOTHER VW after Diesel-Gate, I’m sitting here thinking I’d probably put a deposit down on this thing.

This has it’s merits. Upright, clearance for bad roads, boxy shape with good cargo. 

I drove an Accord and I liked it. I just want an AWD for the miserable upper Midwest winters, and the Accord is only FWD.

It’s true!  Hahaha.   It comes back that the correct answer for the midsize sedan remains to be the Camry.  

It just is what it is. For your average driver, crossovers do just about everything fine. The idea that it’s a fad is just silly. None of the other fads, wagons, minivans, SUVs ever made up a majority of the market. Crossovers do. 

It’s very likely that the new Mondeo/Fusion will be this guy:

Nobody into cars likes to hear what you’re preaching all throughout this entire subthread on the Ford Mondeo.... the thing is.

“I think was Ford / North America has missed the point... which is....what are those of us that use (*and like*) sedans for our work cars supposed to buy?”

“So instead, our cheapest, smallest Ford is the EcoSport”

You laugh but I had a loaded 1996 Mystique with the V6 and it drove like a dream. I drove put 36k miles on it in three years and the only issue I had was the moonroof motor giving out (it was replace on warranty). My cousin bought it from me and had all kinds of issues with it. I suspect she was at least partially at…

When I worked at a dealer group and as working on some ownership lifecycle marketing, I was shocked to see the rates some people were paying in order to drive a higher end German luxury vehicle. I mean, was it really that important to drive an A6 to the train station and back?