Ford offers no-interest loans on ‘07 cars
Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, said it’s offering three-year, no-interest loans on all 2007 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles to start making room at dealerships for next year’s models.
The financing incentives run from today through July 9, spokeswoman Lydia Cisaruk said in an interview. On some models, customers can take cash rebates of $500 to $2,500 instead. The Dearborn, Michigan-based company also is offering an additional $2,007 rebate on 2007 pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
Ford is getting an early start on lot-clearing efforts after a 12 percent drop in its U.S. sales through May, while the industrywide total fell 1.2 percent. Automakers usually begin such offers closer to August, when many of the new models begin to arrive.
“Sometimes you need that shot in the arm,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. “You need to get some of that inventory out.”
Ford shares rose 33 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $9.61 at 12:49 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have gained 28 percent this year.
The $2,007 rebate for pickups and SUVs doesn’t apply to so- called crossover wagons such as the Edge, Cisaruk said.
Ford’s sales have declined in part because of its plan to sell fewer vehicles to car-rental companies, which get discounts for buying in bulk. Ford in October stopped making the original Taurus sedan, sold almost exclusively for rentals, as it closed a plant in Atlanta. Taurus has since been revived as the new name for the Five Hundred sedan, produced at a Chicago factory.
The company also has been hurt by a 13 percent slide through May in sales of F-Series pickups, which account for about a quarter of Ford’s U.S. total.
GM Offers
General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, said on June 25 that it would offer no-interest loans of as long as three years, as well as $1,000 discounts on some 2006 and 2007 models. Those offers also run through July 9 and are tied to the July 4 U.S. holiday.
GM had a 3.2 percent U.S. sales decline in the first five months. The Detroit-based automaker reported an unexpected increase of 9.6 percent in car and light-truck sales in May.
GM also is reducing sales to rental-car customers. The automaker had a 2.1 percent increase in sales to individual buyers in the first five months of the year, spokesman John McDonald said in an e-mail. Such sales generally are more profitable than sales to rental-car companies.