Ford F-150 Pickup Trucks Expected to Hit Record Sales for 2004

Ford Motor Co. has reported that it is nearing a record number of sales of the F-Series large pickup trucks in 2004. The truck market currently accounts for more than a quarter of Ford's domestic sales. It has edged out Nissan Motors line of trucks and and Toyota trucks as well.

Ford Trucks spokesman Jon Harmon said "Ford is very confident we'll break the record'' for full-size pickup sales. Sales of the F-150 Series pickup trucks until now were just 20,000 behind the peak of 911,597 in 2001, Harmon continued. Ford was the only U.S.-based automaker not to lose share in large pickups to the Nissans Titan and Toyota Tundra.

According to Autodata Corp. the F-Series trucks were overhauled and redesigned in the past two years, with Ford in 2003 calling the redesigned F-150, which accounts for 60% of the trucks' sales, its most important vehicle introduction that year. The F-Series boosted its U.S. market share for large pickup trucks 1.1 percentage points to 38.1% in 2004 through November.

Ford will also be counting on new and redesigned vehicles such as the Five Hundred sedan to stem a 14% drop in car sales this year, led by the Ford Taurus and Ford Thunderbird.