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In several market segments, Ford doesn't appear to believe in going head to head VS their competition. The original Thunderbird was created as a response to the Corvette and heavily trounced in sales for three years. Then Ford threw away the best selling American sports car by making it a four seater.
Several times Ford has looked at making another Corvette beater but has never done it. The GT's target wasn't GM, it was Ferrari and Lamborghini, which it could handily stomp into the track, for less money.
Except for 1970-1973, the Mustang has always been built with the engine farther forward than the Camaro, compromising its weight balance VS the Camaro, making it a more difficult vehicle to get to perform well on race tracks. Why build it that way?
The vehicle Ford's customer's have been wanting for decades (probably as far back as the 1950's) is one just like the Suburban, but with the Ford name. What has Ford made? Nothing even close until the four door Explorer which was a lot smaller. GM countered with the shorter wheelbase Yukon and Tahoe. Ford lobs back an ICBM with the gigantic Excursion. When that flops, Ford misses by "that much" with the Explorer XL, a longer wheelbase version without the rear wheels cutting into the rear doors. But still smaller than the Suburban.
Why can't Ford get a clue? We want a Corvette beater that doesn't cost three times more. We want a Mustang designed to be intrinsically better handling. We want a Surburban sized family hauler, not smaller, not larger.
Ford sold huge numbers of the little Mazda based Courier pickup. Those trucks are still crazy popular. People will still pay good money for ones with the bottom of the bed, half the doors and fenders rusted away - as restoration projects. A new truck that size *not an inch larger* would sell millions in the USA.
It's as if that company surveys the people then does exactly the opposite of what people say they want.
Modern manufacturing methods have enabled the ability to make a profit on automobile production numbers in the low thousands, yet most of the companies seem to be oblivious to that, they only want to make vehicles they think will sell at least a few hundred thousand or a million or more, with a very few exceptions for niche markets that have a strongly brand loyal customer base. In some of those, they keep production artificially low when they could actually sell as many as they could run off the production line.
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