Ford F-Series Pickup Sales Surge Toward 800,000

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 7:30AM EST · Published Oct 5, 6:25AM EDT

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Ford F-Series Pickup Sales Surge Toward 800,000 — © courtesy of Ford Motor Co.

After decades as America’s top-selling vehicle, sales of Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) F-series pickups are surging toward 800,000 for the year. No other vehicle will come even close.

F-series sales accounted for an extraordinary 37% of all Ford cars, sport utility vehicles and pickups in September. Sales of the pickup rose 21.4% to 82,302. Ford’s total sales for the month were up 8.7% to 222,248. At its current pace, F-150 sales could hit 800,000 this year.

September sales of the next top-selling vehicle in the country, General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Silverado pickup, were 55,236, up 21.7%.

While the F-series pickup news was good for Ford, it shows how dependent the company is on one product. Its new president and CEO, Jim Hackett, recently laid out a future of autonomous and electric vehicles. These may be a very hard sell to pickup owners, especially those who use their vehicles for heavy work. Ford has an F-150 Hybrid in the works, but it may not be for sale until as late as 2020.

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Ford may have to adopt a two-pronged plan. Pickup and van owners may have little interest in Ford’s cars and trucks of the future. Car drivers will be, but cars are where Ford needs help. Most months, its vehicle sales in that category are plunging. Sales of its two best-selling cars, the Focus and Fusion, have suffered double-digit percentage sales losses this year.

Whatever Ford’s future, it can count on a vehicle with unequaled sales strength, and one that may sell has many as 800,000 units this year.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.