{"id":28092,"date":"2021-10-12T16:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=28092"},"modified":"2021-10-12T16:00:41","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:00:41","slug":"payne-ford-completes-a-radical-remake-for-the-age-of-ute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/payne-ford-completes-a-radical-remake-for-the-age-of-ute","title":{"rendered":"Payne: Ford completes a radical remake for the Age of Ute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nashville<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 Ford has made national headlines with billion-dollar battery investments in Tennessee and Kentucky as it explores\u00a0future electric-vehicle\u00a0markets. But the news has overshadowed a remarkably\u00a0fast\u00a0transformation of the Blue Oval brand\u00a0from a car-and-truck maker to an SUV-and-truck maker.<\/p>\n

With the Ford Maverick, Ford’s\u00a0entry-level\u00a0<\/em>vehicle is now an SUV-based pickup truck \u2014 not a\u00a0Focus or Fusion sedan. Indeed, a brand that just a generation\u00a0ago\u00a0made the country\u2019s best-selling Taurus sedan doesn’t\u00a0have a single\u00a0four-door car in its lineup.<\/p>\n

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The Maverick headlines an appealing,\u00a0gas-powered compact SUV lineup \u2014 Maverick\/Bronco Sport\/Escape \u2014 that is one of the most innovative\u00a0in the industry’s highest volume, non-pickup segment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we exit sedans, it\u2019s an opportunity to bring value\/affordability into the marketplace,\u201d said Todd Eckert, marketing chief for\u00a0Ford trucks, of the SUV triplets at the Maverick’s media test in Nashville. \u201cAt an entry price-point, (they)\u00a0give\u00a0customers a choice. We\u00a0have options: traditional\u00a0SUV with the Escape.\u00a0Bronco Sport for a more rugged off-road environment. And with Maverick, the opportunity to combine affordability and the flexibility of a pickup box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford is making this value appeal with a shrewd strategy that leverages iconic sub-brands far beyond their traditional niches: Bronco, pickup trucks\u00a0and Mustang sports car. The latter brand has been expanded far beyond its traditional muscle car segment to introduce\u00a0a Tesla Model Y-fighting electric SUV.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey have figured out how to marry these\u00a0sub-brands to a wider consumer for the 21st century,\u201d said ISeeCars.com executive auto analyst Karl Brauer. \u201cIf you take an SUV and give them added capability, then you can appeal to customers who aren\u2019t traditional Ford buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buyers like Jeremy Ingram, 47, of Oakland Township. Ingram has bought both a Bronco and a Maverick, despite having never owned Fords in those vehicle segments before.<\/p>\n

Ingram buys vehicles for fun. He and his wife sold their\u00a0Roxor side-by-side off-roader and convertible VW Bug\u00a0in order to buy the Bronco.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been looking forward to this vehicle for a long time,\u201d smiled the off-road fan, who has helped build the Holly Oaks ORV park. Ingram had resisted buying a Jeep Wrangler \u2014 long the king of the dirt \u2014 due to its cramped interior and rough on-road ride. The rugged Bronco is in his sweet spot with a roomier interior and smoother-riding, independent front suspension.<\/p>\n

He has a Maverick on order\u00a0as his daily driver for\u00a0its maneuverability\u00a0and 500-mile hybrid range\u00a0\u2014 while still providing the bed utility\u00a0he got with a big, thirsty F-150. If his Maverick works out, he plans to buy others for his contractor business. \u201cI like the fuel economy, it keeps costs down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For customers like Ingram, Maverick has instant credibility despite its smaller size due to brand cred Ford has earned over 40 years as America’s best-selling truck-maker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a breakthrough for us and the industry. We feel like it extends the Built Ford Tough lineup,\u201d said Ford’s Eckert. \u201cWe\u2019ve been watching customers in terms of affordability and maneuverability. Maverick is the first standard hybrid in a pickup.\u00a0Forty\u00a0mpg, 500 miles of range \u2014 giving a 1-2 punch of maneuverability and efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s hard to understate the dramatic\u00a0shift in the U.S. auto market in the last\u00a0decade. In 2010, sedans made up 51% of non-pickup truck sales as the country flirted with $4-a-gallon gasoline and buyers cut back during the Great Recession. Today, SUVs make up more than\u00a070% of such sales.<\/p>\n

As recently as 1992, the Ford Taurus sedan was the best-selling car in America with more than 410,000\u00a0units. Today the Taurus (and its Fusion stablemate) have disappeared\u00a0 and the Toyota RAV4 SUV is the non-pickup sales king at more than 400,000 units.<\/p>\n

Credit the fracking revolution and cheap gas as far as the eye can\u00a0see \u2014 and car-like chassis designs that make, say, a unibody Ford Explorer SUV ride like a magic carpet compared with its truck-based ancestors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a couple of decades making money-making SUVs and money-losing sedans, automakers figured out how to make SUVs drive more like cars,\u201d said Brauer. \u201cThe Maverick is a truck that, in reality, is an SUV that feels as car-like as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Maverick is built on the same compact unibody skeleton as the Escape and Bronco Sport. Ford says\u00a0its future is electric, but for now customers want more affordable petrol\u00a0power.\u00a0The 2021 Bronco Sport is outselling the 2021 Mach-E by a ratio of 6-1.<\/p>\n

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was\u00a0first to recognize the SUV revolution. The Stellantis predecessor ditched sedans and leveraged the iconic Jeep name to lead its own brand reinvention \u2014 the Wrangler SUV leading a Jeep sales parade that exploded from 231,701 units in 2009\u00a0to 923,291 in 2019.<\/p>\n

Ford dusted off its own Bronco off-road icon and followed the Jeep model.<\/p>\n

\u201cFord learned from Jeep,\u201d said Brauer. \u201cThe unibody Grand Cherokee was the first no-compromise SUV with on-and-off-road capability. Ford is doing that with the unibody Bronco Sport that brings durability, capability \u2014 and looks cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ford and FCA\u00a0strategy makes an\u00a0interesting contrast to that of cross-Motown rival General Motors.<\/p>\n

The General\u00a0has leveraged powerful luxury brands Hummer and Cadillac to compete against\u00a0luxury automakers\u00a0like Tesla and Audi in the $60,000-plus EV space. In so doing, the Detroit automaker aims\u00a0to prove the efficacy of all-electric platforms for more mainstream\u00a0EVs like the Chevy Bolt EUV.<\/p>\n

GM, once a pioneer in hybrids, has abandoned the technology. But\u00a0like Japan’s Toyota, Ford and Jeep have embraced it as a more affordable, fuel-efficient tech for mainstream buyers.<\/p>\n

The Maverick (which shares its hybrid drivetrain with the pricier\u00a0Escape)\u00a0is the cheapest hybrid\u00a0sold in the U.S. market \u2014 starting at an eye-opening\u00a0$21,490.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed in GM. They were ahead of their time with plug-in hybrids,\u201d said Brauer. \u201cBut they walked away from them in order\u00a0to pursue pure EVs. Toyota has stuck with hybrids and that is where the consumer seems to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

GM has receive rave media and environmentalist\u00a0reviews for its zero-emissions strategy while Toyota has been widely shamed. But Ford and Jeep are following Toyota’s path with, respectively, the Escape Hybrid Sport and Wrangler 4xe Plugin Hybrid\u00a0in high-volume, mainstream segments.<\/p>\n

For the pure EV space, Ford is competing in the $40k-plus bracket against\u00a0the Chevy\u00a0Bolt by leveraging its sexy Mustang\u00a0and F-150 sub-brands to make the Mach-E SUV and Lightning pickup EVs.<\/p>\n

One hundred years after the tall Model T led a transportation transformation, Ford is betting the farm that its high-riding Bronco\/F-150\/Mustang brands can win SUV and electrification revolutions.<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nashville\u00a0\u2014 Ford has made national headlines with billion-dollar battery investments in Tennessee and Kentucky as it explores\u00a0future electric-vehicle\u00a0markets. But the news has overshadowed a remarkably\u00a0fast\u00a0transformation of the Blue Oval brand\u00a0from a car-and-truck maker to an SUV-and-truck maker. With the Ford Maverick, Ford’s\u00a0entry-level\u00a0vehicle is now an SUV-based pickup truck \u2014 not a\u00a0Focus or Fusion sedan. Indeed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28093,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28092\/revisions\/28093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}