Ford F-Series Continues Its Sales Streak
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A line of pickup trucks from Dearborn is the best-selling vehicle in America. There’s a very good chance you have indeed heard this before; after all, it’s been happening for 41 years.
Putting numbers to this feat, we find the Blue Oval managed to shift more than 640,000 F-Series pickups in the 2022 calendar year. That’s one every 49 seconds if one were to pretend dealerships are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Come to think of it, there is surely a GSM or two who’d like that notion very much. And, yes – the math checks out; it’s one truck every 49.275 seconds if you want to get pedantic. In addition to being America’s best-selling vehicle in 41 different years, the F-Series has been this country’s best-selling pickup truck for 46 consecutive trips around the sun.
For the first time in ages, the F-Series family tree has a new branch in the form of the all-electric F-150 Lightning. Sales of that trim are included in Ford’s boast, though it’ll be a few days before we learn how many Lightnings were sold to pad the F-Series totals; all we know for now is that Ford has somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 orders, a sum which is completely and wholly apart from delivery numbers.
Remember, this best-selling claim encompasses all F-Series trucks from the pedestrian F-150 to mighty F-550 chassis cabs. That’s a huge range of machines, stretching a net that includes rigs that do not compete in the same segment whatsoever. And the world turns.
Ford remains atop the leaderboard for several good reasons, not all of which are tied to counting driveway-queen half-tons with brutish work machines. The F-150 can brag about attributes ranging from a well-crafted interior to its innovative array of features, the latter of which includes electric generators in the bed which can belt out up to 7200W when paired with a PowerBoost hybrid powerplant. Its competitors have strengths in other areas but cannot currently touch this level of Swiss Army knife usefulness.
Having umpteen engine choices and a variety of trims also serve to capture a wide swath of the buying public; Billy Bob can choose a color-keyed Lariat in Retail Red while Johnny Ray can pop for a chrome-laden King Ranch in refrigerator white. They all count at year’s end.
[Image: Ford]
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Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.
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I just played a part in adding to this number.
Yesterday, my father-in-law ordered himself a F-150 XL, crew cab, shorty bed, 2.7T, and every option that you can get with a vinyl floor (consisting basically of FX4, tow package, and Sync 4). I helped him reconcile himself to the fact that a diesel 3/4 ton would make his life more difficult in every relevant respect, and that the extra feeling of machismo wouldn't be worth it. By the time we had gone through the options list twice, first at home and then with the salesman, he was stoked about his new truck even if it won't go BRAAAAPwaawaawaawaawaawaa.
Serious question for anyone who knows/cares: I knew Ford lumped "F-Series" together, but thought this was only Light Duty trucks (F-150 through F-350?) -- are they now including Medium Duty (F-450? through F-750) as well? Is this a change or was it always this way?