Now updated with the prices for the 2026 model year.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Ford has started production this week of its 2026 F-150 XLT pickups, final prices are posted on its website, and the first ones will be on dealer lots in about 4-6 weeks. Toyota’s 2026 Camry LE sedans have been on dealer lots for a while. So with both prices for the 2026 model year finalized, I can update the proprietary “WOLF STREET Ford F-150 XLT & Toyota Camry LE Price Index.”

Ford marginally reduced the MSRP of the F-150 XLT for the second year in a row, to $45,595 (not including the $2,595 in “destination charges” … more in a moment), after the obscene price spikes for the 2022, 2023, and 2024 model years had totaled 34.5%.

The base F-150 XLT in this index is a two-door real-wheel drive truck with cloth interior, that for 2026 has the 2.7L V6 EcoBoost engine (325 HP and 410 lb.-ft. of torque), a 10-speed automatic transmission, and a lot of nice standard equipment.

For 2026, Ford has two lower-end models, the F-150 XL and the SXT. But the Wolf Street index goes back to 1989, and only the XLT has been available every year. The 2026 base XL starts just below $40,000.

Any upgrades from the base F-150 XLT increase the cost of the truck. For example, an F-150 Platinum 4X4 Crew Cab (four doors) with the 3.5L PowerBoost Full Hybrid Engine and all the bells and whistles has an MSRP of $96,800 (plus $2,595 in “destination charges”).

Need 720 HP “to raise your adrenaline and stir up all sorts of excitement,” as Ford says on its website? Your pleas have been heard. There is the Raptor 4X4 Crew Cab with the 5.2L Supercharged V8 Engine. This truck fully loaded has an MSRP of $120,000 (plus $2,595 in “destination charges”).

So Ford’s high-end trucks are in the luxury category and can cost about three times as much as the base trucks.

Toyota changed strategy for the 2025 model year, when it made hybrid drive, still a $2,400 option in 2024, standard on all Camrys, including the base Camry LE. And in making that $2,400 option standard, it increased the MSRP for the 2025 Camry LE by $1,980, or by 7.5%. This became the lowest-priced Camry available a year ago.

Then for the 2026 model year, the price of the base Camry LE Hybrid, the lowest-priced Camry available, rose by 2.1%, to $29,000 (plus $1,195, for Toyota’s “Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee”).

The legacy automakers set MSRPs at the beginning of each model year for the entire model year. But throughout the year, automakers attempt to stimulate sales with various incentives paid to dealers and/or rebates paid directly to customers, and by subsidizing loan rates and leases through their captive lenders (such as Ford Credit and Toyota Financial Services). Dealers then apply discounts as they see fit, and actual prices that customers pay vary from dealer to dealer and from day to day.

Why the base F-150 XLT and the base Camry LE? The WOLF STREET price index uses them for two reasons: Both go back beyond 1990; and both have been bestsellers in their categories, true mass-market vehicles. Other models, such as the Corvette or the Mustang, go back even further, but they have never been mass-market vehicles.

It’s amusing to note that in the 1990s, when trucks were still reasonably priced, the Camry LE was more expensive than the F-150 XLT.

But then automakers started figuring out that Americans were willing to pay much higher prices for big upscale equipment, and jacked up prices, and their profit margins on trucks soared to obscene levels, while they could not raise prices as easily on their sedans. After years of trying, the US legacy automakers, under pressure from Wall Street, gave up and began abandoning their sedans, and most of them were no longer in production by 2019, leaving the market to imports. The only “car” that Ford still produces for the US market is the Mustang. Ford killed its Camry competitor, the Fusion, in 2018.

But as Ford found out, there are limits to how much Americans are willing to pay for big equipment, after the ridiculous 34% price spike for the 2022 to 2024 model years of its trucks: Sales stalled, inventory piled up, and massive incentives were needed to move the trucks. Since then, Ford has cut the MSRP, and incentives are still needed.

The “charges” and “fees” also increased. Ford’s “destination charges” jumped by 30% year-over-year to $2,595, from last year’s $1,995, more than eating up the little reduction in MSRP (last year’s charges had been unchanged from the prior year).

Including “destination charges,” total MSRP of the base F-150 XLT edged up by $395 to $47,985. But that was still down by $1,630 from the total MSRP two years ago.

Toyota’s “delivery, processing and handling fee” rose by 5.3% year-over-year, to $1,195 from last-year’s $1,135, which had increased by 3.6% from the prior year ($1,095).

And the total MSRP of the Camry LE rose by 2.2% to $30,195 from last-year’s $29,535.

The CPI for new vehicles. To stimulate sales, automakers and dealers piled on massive incentives and discounts. The CPI for new vehicles, which tracks the purchase prices paid by customers, not MSRPs, did a good job tracking this.

The WOLF STREET price index and the CPI for new vehicles show just how far out of line Ford’s price increases for the F-150 have been over the years, compared to the overall new vehicle prices, which CPI tracks, while Camry price increases roughly matched overall new vehicle price increases as tracked by CPI.

For the 2025 model year, Toyota made the $2,400 hybrid option standard, so this is an upgrade of the vehicle and the price increase resulting from that was not inflation, but from a major “quality improvement.” This happens all the time in the auto industry. But CPI attempts to show inflation, and not quality improvements, and so it attempts to eliminate the costs of “quality improvements” with “hedonic quality adjustments.”

Since 2010:

• CPI for new vehicles has risen by 28.7% (yellow in the char below).
• The Camry LE MSRP has risen by 32.4% (blue in the chart below). Through model year 2024, it lagged behind CPI. The added hybrid powertrain in model year 2025 then caused the price to jump and surpassed CPI.
• The F-150 XLT MSRP has risen grotesquely by 72.9%, despite the cuts over the past two years. (red)

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WOLF STREET FEATURE: Daily Market Insights by Chris Vermeulen, Chief Investment Officer, TheTechnicalTraders.com.