Over at Ford, it's far easier to name which vehicles increased in sales over last August than name those that decreased....

* Escape up 4.4%
* Expedition up 16.8%
* Mariner up 6.1%
* Navigator up 57.4%

The entire Lincoln division is up 16%. Mercury overall is down 20%. The Ford Motor division is off 6.9% (16% discounting trucks).

Other noteworthy items at Ford:

* Five Hundred sold 6,000 cars last August. This year combined sales of Five Hundred & Taurus is about the same at roughly 5,900 sold.... last year 4,000 Freestyles were sold. This year, 4,800 combos of Freestyle & Taurus X were sold.
* Fusion is down 19%
* Ranger is down 40%
* Mustang is down 35.8% (yet down only 16% for the entire year)
* MKZs sold nearly identical numbers to last August, 3216 vs 3239.
* Every Volvo model is down double digits over last year save the S80 (up 345.9%). The least serious drop? XC90. Only 19.7%. The rest of the lineup? Twenties and thirties pretty much says it all.

Problem at Ford?

GM has brand new trucks, SUVs, and crossovers that actually challenge the imports. GM's also manage to keep the hemorraging of high volume car sales to a minimum (save the Buick Division) and have a series of high profile cars to keep intrest up. Ford, on the other hand, is still dealing with being behind in new products are still running with a largely old lineup.

Their main image car, the Mustang, is going into it's fourth year without any changes (Mustangs traditionally have a shelf-life of 3 years without changes before sales go a little stale). Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis (off 34 & 44%) haven't been changed in nearly a decade, while Dodge Charger is muscling in on Police sales, and Chevy Impala is picking up government fleet sales.

Even their newer cars, the Fusion, is entering it's 3rd model year. Old Ford strategies of adding a performance version of a model when sales soften was abandoned some time ago.

Things are going to get even worse for Ford in the near future. Malibu will likely snag many Fusion sales with a stronger engine, more features, and newer interior designs. Dodge Challenger will likely pull some Mustang buyers with more room and the newer styling, the longer Charger is sold as a police car, the more custom LE accesories will show up, feeding sales farther. The new CTS is likely to pull sales from MKZ.

Ford's only bright spot is in it's next gen F-series trucks. Ford hit one out of the park with the current version on the strength of it's quality, and it's groundbreaking interior design. The new versions being unveiled this winter will have far more riding on them than the current versions did. These next F-series Trucks have to be pretty phenominal in design & features as well as continuing to set quality and interior benchmarks.

Also, that Bullitt and Boss Mustang can't come fast enough.

 

One good sign for Ford is that they're reducing fleet sales pretty dramatically. But unfortunately they aren't making up for it at retail.

Also, Fusion is clearly not catching on, which has to be a disappointment.

 

Bet that's almost entirely fleet sales. Even the mighty GXP is in Alamo lots these days. What an ignominious end for one of the best model names in history.

 

And what's good for GM is good for America !!! Could Americans finally be realizing "GM IS the Best in the Business"? Well miracles never cease......

 

Avalanche is for the guy that wants a pickup, Suburban is for the guy that wants an SUV. The real question is who chooses an Avalanche over a Silverado crew cab? Don't get me wrong I love the Avalanche and would love to own one, but when they came out in 2002 GM didn't have a crew cab 1500. Crew Cab Silverado's are stealing its sales more than anything. I wonder if the truck market contracts this truck will go away in say the next 10 years, of course by then you might see Honda and Nissan drop their trucks too. Just some speculation.

 

Exactly, I see tons of base model '07 Grand Prix on these budget type used car lots, that have ex-rental cars written all over them, were Ford Taurus use to be. And that is the vacuum Ford is feeling right now from not having the Tarurus to sell to fleet and rental agenices.

Question: If the new Taurus doesn't take off and remains at Five-Hundred poor sales levels, will Ford go back to selling it to fleets?

 

The Car Connection is reporting that GM increased fleet sales by 25% this month, which contradicts what the company has been claiming it's been doing over the summer.

Still, GM should be happy with its performance this month. Now let's see what the market does the rest of the year.

 

Doubt it very seriously.

Ford is focused (no pun intended) on financial health and returning to profitability. They've stated publically the past couple of years that they intend to dramatically cut sales to rental companies and cut back on fleet purchases, even if it means far lower overall sales. They've backed it up with action, and last quarter they actually made some pocket change.

Automakers have been using rentals & fleet sales to keep people employed making sellable goods instead of laying them off and paying them for doing nothing.

With Ford's buyouts, they can clear out a massive numbers of employees (about half of it's US factory workers were eligible, and well over 1/3 of Ford factory workers took the the buyout), and therefore no longer have to make cars and sell them at a loss in order to avoid losing far more money having idle workers while depending on their truck line, Mustangs, and long paid off Crown Vics, Town Cars, and Grand Marquis to counter the losses.

No. Ford is permanently cutting these fleet & all but gutting rental sales.

 

Somebody has to sell to fleets and rental companies. Why not just raise the price and let the chips fall where the may?

 

Kia and Hyundai will be there to catch the fleet overflow if needed.

 

Renting a car is really different experience nowdays. Instead of rows of identical oldsmobiles and buicks, their lots seem to have just about one of everything - toyotas, nissans, hyndais, GM and chrysler on the same lot, etc

 

A few of both have been showing up at the Enterprise location that I use for work rentals.

 

I can't seem to find a breakdown chart for August sales?? I can usually find it on the net.. anyway, is it possible GM was trying to unload some unwanted Malibu's before the launch of the new '08?

 

When GM can post consistent sales gains... then I'll start taking notice.

 

Capn Pete: GM is producing 90,000 trucks a month, which is way more than they are selling. They were offering 0% financing on the newly redesigned Silverados and Sierras for August after dismal sales of full size pickups in June and July. The increase in August sales is just a blip fueled by incentives to blow out old 07 inventory. Why cut back at the Oshawa plant? I dont know, but it might have something to do with the animosity between GM and the CAW.