Ford bounces back in June, pulls away from Mazda and Hyundai

Ford has cleared its back-lot of thousands of Falcons, recorded its strongest sales in 12 months and increased its lead over Mazda and Hyundai, both of whom had been challenging the local maker for third place on the sales charts.

Preliminary data for June shows that Ford sold 9200 vehicles last month, up 35 per cent on May and the best monthly result since June 2010 (when Ford sold 10,000 cars).

Going into June, Ford, Mazda and Hyundai had been separated by just 1500 sales year-to-date.

But a strong month for Ford meant that the Blue Oval brand was able to pull away from Mazda and Hyundai – even though both Asian brands posted first-half-year sales records.

Preliminary data shows that Ford now leads Mazda by 1300 sales year-to-date and Hyundai by 2200.

Sales of the new Territory SUV (pictured) were triple the monthly average so far this year and the runout Ranger ute posted an all-time record, according to the car maker.

The $32,990 drive-away deal on the Falcon XR6 ($34,990 plus $2000 cash back) also gave Ford’s big sedan a much needed boost, but Falcon sales were still below 2000 for the month, roughly half that of its main rival, the Holden Commodore.

The president and CEO of Ford Australia, Robert Graziano, told motoring.com.au: “I wish you could drive by the plant because we’ve got to actually go out there and mow that lawn now because there’s no vehicles. She’s empty.”

“[Actually] there are some vehicles against the fence there but they are waiting for a ship to go to New Zealand, so that’s the only reason that they’re there.”

Graziano said the new Territory is now in full production and almost beat the original’s launch month in 2004.

“We had a very good Territory month [but] when you look at Territory we didn’t have a full month of sales. [We] almost beat the launch record for the original Territory. Had we had another ten days I think we would have [beaten the original Territory’s launch month record].”

The overall record for Territory in a given month is 2200 sales but the launch record was 1600 sales set in 2004.

Graziano defended Ford’s seven years of sales decline but would not predict if the car maker would finish 2011 ahead of last year’s tally.

“I think it’s tough to tell because it really depends on the run out and the ramp up of the vehicles,” he said. “It depends on where the industry goes and how strong does the industry stay through the balance of the year, so it really is difficult to forecast.

“If you look at a share perspective year on year through May we were about flat year on year. We’re pretty comfortable with how we’re fairing and so now we’re going to build on that success with Territory and with all the other new products that we’re launching.”

The industry was down by five per cent to May but Ford sales were down by eight per cent for the same period. Holden sales were also down by a similar percentage.

Graziano said the company’s fortunes will improve towards the end of the year as new models are introduced.

“By February of next year we will have changed over 85 per cent of our showroom and I think that’s a pretty powerful message,” he said.

The Ford Focus small car and Ranger ute are due in showrooms in the next few months, but both will initially be restricted by supply because of factory ramp-up and overseas demand.

By the end of the year Ford will also introduce a facelifted Falcon along with a new LPG system.

The four-cylinder Ecoboost Falcon will be introduced early next year.

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