Ford Up 25% In April; Up 33% YTD
Published: May 3rd, 2010
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Ford continued its momentum in April, if perhaps not at quite the blistering pace as in the past few months. In a clear indication of how the market is returning to a more pre-recession composition, car sales were up only 10%, while utilities jumped 33% and trucks 38%. The F-Series had a very strong month, topping 40k units with a 42% rise. Ford also increased its ratio of retail to fleet sales, with retail sales up 32% and fleet a more modest 13%. Ford is also crowing about resale values being up 23% versus last year. In terms of brands, Ford was up 26%, Mercury 19%, and Lincoln 22%. Not exactly a knock-out month, but another strong showing. Details follow:
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In the case of the Freestyle/Taurus X the answer is the thing that strikes fear into the hearts of stylists everywhere: focus-group testing. IIRC the original Freestyle look was much harder edged but the all-knowing focus group members favored a more streamlined, carlike appearance. We all know how well that one worked out. With the Flex the opposite effect was in place. The Fairlane concept was reasonably well received on the auto show circuit and J Mays apparently convinced the bean counters to make a bet on distinctive styling that would set the Flex apart from the rest of the CUV crowd. Personally I'm a fan of the resulting modern-retro look, but most of the market seems to disagree with me. Back to the sales numbers: The big worry is that the Crown Vic and Town Car are still doing a lot of heavy lifting. The good news is that the Fiesta will probably add about 4000-5000 units/month, the new Focus should at least modestly beat the current car's numbers, the new Explorer should substantially beat the current car's numbers, the Grand C-Max should do at least 2000-3000 units/month, and of course the revamped Mustang is sure to reverse some of the current sales slump. Collectively, it's easy to project about 10,000-15,000 units/month of new structural volume on top of what Ford is doing now. Next up, though, Lincoln needs some serious attention. There is just not enough engineering differentiation or brand identity to set it off from Ford and build some luxury clout.
Totally unscientific report here, but in the last week I've seen no fewer than nine different new Tauruses plying the streets around Albuquerque. I don't recall seeing nearly that many in the months since the model was released. Good to see, as are the number of new Fusions out there. All but one Taurus looked to be either an SE or Limited. I don't think these were fleet, either -- no RAC barcodes on the back glass, and all had NM plates or in-transit tags. The one SHO really stood out. Conversely, I've also noticed a ton of new Impalas and Sebrings... alas, all with government plates. Hey, nothing says "soul-crushing bureaucratic tedium" better than a Gov't Motors Special.