Ford Trucks For Sale

Sales of Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles sagged again in March by double digits. Meanwhile, growing sales of the Focus compact car shed light on increasing consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Overall, auto sales last month were the lowest since March 1993, as U.S. new-car buyers pulled back from rising gasoline prices, tighter credit markets and a weak economy.

Ford foresees an even tougher second quarter, said Jim Farley, group vice president for global marketing and communications.

“I would like to tell you the worst is behind us,” he said. The second quarter “may be the most difficult of the year.”

General Motors and Chrysler led the downward sales trend with a 19 percent sales drops in March, followed by Ford’s 14 percent decline compared to a year earlier.

Toyota, Nissan and Honda reported declines of 10 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

The North American sales outlook for the entire industry for the year could dip as low as 15 million vehicles, Ford executives said.

F-Series truck sales declined 24 percent and Explorer sport utility vehicle sales fell 15 percent, the automaker reported.

Ford sold 54,465 F-Series trucks last month, compared to 71,482 in March 2007. Buyers continue to bypass the Explorer in search of more fuel-efficient vehicles, with the SUV dropping to 10,969 sold in March, down from 12,876 in last year’s period.

Ford’s Louisville plants manufacture the Explorer and F-Series 250 and larger trucks.

Those results are even starker when compared to March 2006, with F-Series truck and Explorer sales plummeting about 35 percent each since then.

Viewed another way, trucks and SUVs account now for 30 percent of Ford sales, compared to 50 percent in 2004, Farley said.

“That is a wholesale change,” he said. “Frankly, this shift puts a lot of pressure on our market share.”

The change is apparent across the automobile market, said Jesse Toprak, chief of industry analysis at Edmunds.com.

Still, with rising sales of the Focus, Ford’s lone entry in the small-car market, and increasing popularity of the Edge, the Escape and other crossover SUVs, Ford is maintaining its 15 percent market-share goal for 2008, Farley said.

Ford continues to enjoy decent sales of the Edge, up 35 percent in March to 13,508 from 10,915 one year ago.

The Focus also appears to be getting traction among buyers looking for a small vehicle for price, fuel economy or both. Ford reported Focus sales rose 36 percent in March to 21,168.

Still, Ford would do well to broaden its small-car offerings beyond the Focus, Toprak said.

“Honda and Toyota have always had quite a few selections in every category,” he said. “That is truly the whole idea of going after the niche markets, to have a car for any customer, in any income bracket, in any kind of size.”

Collin County neighborhoods are increasingly populated by people of Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Latin American descent – a veritable United Nations.

And then there minorities like me. FORDs: Fat, Old, Rumpled Democrats.

In the land of Lexus, Jaguar, Mercedes and Hummers, it is the BMW – those initials symbolizing Collin County’s insatiable appetite for consumption – that is all too often seen and heard. And to the dismay of the FORD, the BMW also rules politically; they’re just called Republicans.

Being a FORD is a family affair for me. My father was pretty much a FORD man until the day he died – the older he got, the more partisan he remained. So what makes a FORD run? We don’t like paying taxes anymore than others, especially when they surface in the New Age form of road tolls – an increasingly popular mechanism among the ruling party in Austin to snatch money from its citizens without truth in labeling. When “See the USA in your Chevrolet” was popular, it meant driving the open roads – free from cost other than related to the vehicle. Hey, Buzz Murdock and Tod Stiles drove their Corvette on Route 66 for nothing.

FORDs want to save the environment, but many among us care less about what’s being recycled and more about the brown stuff we call breathable air.

Mostly, a FORD cares about who made this nation strong and vibrant – the men and women who built things, from skyscrapers to bridges, to the tools that created them. American workers are more responsible for the economic success and growth of this nation following World War II (our golden jubilee, apparently) than corporate management.

Sadly, too many worker-bee positions have been sacrificed overseas for profit’s sake, while not enough suits-and-ties have seen the same fate. You see, workers tend now to be FORDS like me, and suits tend to be BMWs.

When I was a pup, American-made meant something – top-grade quality. Of course, I come from a time when my refrigerator was made in Amana, Iowa; my Zenith television came from Chicago; my Emerson radio was built on Long Island; and the phone was made by Western Electric – an American company. My baseball glove was an American Wilson model, my shoes came from Brockton, Mass., and my baseball bats had “Louisville, Kentucky” stamped on each piece of wood. The cars we drove were only made in Detroit, because we supported the home team.

Our homes stood for American products. You did get what you paid for; the purchase of anything “USA” kept the economy strong. Wages from buying our products circulated through families, neighborhoods and businesses – to buy more American goods and hire more American workers – the ones who actually stood on that factory line.

Too many BMWs have turned the word “union” into something dirty, unpleasant and vilified. But those same BMWs scream the loudest when all these foreign-made products, which have flooded the market because of the low, low cost-per-unit price, have begun to make children sick as dogs.

That really didn’t happen when American workers made those same items, did it?

In this land of BMWs, the honk from this old FORD just can’t be heard. The local BMW drivers run everything from the courthouse to the outhouse, where many of us find our current lot in life.

I have always believed that no man needs to own a Rolex or any other expensive watch in order to tell time. A Bulova or Timex does the same thing at a fraction of the cost. After all, isn’t that the “function” of a watch? Same holds true for being a FORD. My beliefs will get me to where I want to go; no need to own and maintain an expensive, overpriced philosophy. And when the others in this area realize that a FORD works as well, or better, than any BMW, things might get changed for the better.