Mustang all the things!
The Mustang Mach-E.
You probably have an opinion on it, but regardless of where you stand,
it marks the beginning of a new era for Ford’s storied moniker. That’s
because Mustang
is no longer just a pony car – it’s a brand that now includes a
four-door electric crossover and if you’re anything like us, you’re
wondering just how far this Mustang brand expansion could lead.
Rendering artist Aksyonov Nikita at Bēhance.net has similar thoughts.
Yup,
that’s a Mustang Mach-E pickup truck at the top of this article and you
know what? We don’t hate it. That is, we don’t hate the look of this
decidedly aggressive off-roader. Using the Mustang branding is still
very much a hotly debated subject among the Motor1.com team, but even our most vocal haters concede that, if Ford is
serious about turning Mustang into a sub brand, a pickup truck design
is probably wafting through the minds of designers in Dearborn as we
speak. The F-150
has been the best-selling pickup for decades, and Ford undoubtedly has a
loyal group of truck buyers. Might those buyers be tempted to swap an
F-150 for a sporty Mustang truck?
Actually, we don’t see a Mustang-branded truck ever happening. For
starters, such a vehicle would almost certainly be a road-going
performance truck not unlike the SVT F-150 Lightning of old. It was an
awesome truck for sure, but the Raptor
has clearly demonstrated buyers are far more interested in off-road
performance when it comes to cool trucks. Also, stirring the pickup pot
too much risks upsetting far more loyal truck buyers than angering the
Mustang ranks.
We also don’t see Ford tinkering with its truck
lineup too much because, right now at least, it’s the only Blue Oval
group that’s posting positive sales figures in the U.S. According to the
company’s Q3 2019 sales statement, SUVs are down over 10 percent and
car sales are down nearly 30 percent. On the flip side, trucks are up
almost 9 percent so yeah, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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