Ford to push work use of its new F-150 pickup
Monday, June 30th, 2008How do you bring a new full-size pickup to market with $4-a-gallon gas?
That’s the challenge leaders at Ford Motor Co. face in launching the company’s best-selling product — the iconic F-150 — as the market moves faster than ever away from large trucks toward affordable, fuel-efficient cars.
The automaker already has made some big decisions designed to bring Ford trucks back to their Built-Ford-Tough roots. Instead of kicking off the launch of the all-new 2009 F-150 with luxurious four-door models, Ford instead will launch the truck with the 2-door models that always have been more popular among contractors, farmers and fleet customers.
What’s more, Ford also plans to focus most of its future marketing efforts on customers who buy a truck for work instead of pleasure or everyday driving — a big shift from the past when Ford was focused on selling Harley-Davidson and King Ranch SuperCrew trucks, which come with four regular doors, as luxurious substitutes for cars.
”The core truck buyer is who we’re going to focus on,“ Mike Crowley, Ford’s group marketing plans manager for trucks and SUVs, said. ”Those who want a truck, and need a truck, will make compromises to buy it.“
Of course, the F-150 won’t be the only pickup vying for their attention. The Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Dodge Ram and Toyota Tundra also will be competing for the shrinking pool of truck buyers.
But with an all-new version of the F-150, Ford still says it has a winner, despite the tough market.
Aside from its improved capability and innovative features, Crowley said Ford will spend more time talking about the improved fuel economy in the 2009 F-150, which involves seven models.
The current F-150 gets an average of 12 to 16 miles per gallon, depending on the model, according to federal government ratings.
But Crowley said Ford has achieved an improvement of 1.5 miles per gallon, on average, for the new F-150 lineup by making the new truck lighter and more aerodynamic and by adding a 6-speed transmission and a new, 4.6-liter, 3-valve V-8 engine.
By 2010, the F-150 also will be sold with an optional diesel engine, as well as EcoBoost — gasoline turbocharged direct-injection technology that will offer up to a 20 percent improvement in fuel economy, company spokesman Said Deep said.
Last Friday, in response to the worsening U.S. economy, Ford announced that it would delay the launch of the 2009 F-150 by two months — a move that will bring the truck to showrooms later this fall and give dealers more time to sell down the outgoing body style. It is scaling back production this year at its Louisvillle truck plant.
Through May, F-Series sales were down 18.7 percent, making the year-end sell-down take longer than usual.
While nationwide sales of full-size pickup trucks have plummeted 21.1 percent in the tough market, Ford and independent experts say there is still an opportunity for Ford to make meaningful gains in the market with its critical, new truck.
CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., which does extensive studies on pickup buyers, breaks the segment into five categories of buyers: contractors; farmers and ranchers; towers, or people who pull RVs and boats; fleet customers, and so-called appearance buyers, or those who just like the look and image of a pickup.
But not all of those categories have experienced a decline in sales, Art Spinella, president of CNW, said Tuesday.
The percentage of pickup sales to contractors, fleet customers and farmers and ranchers is actually up, he noted.
And while the percentage of customers buying trucks to tow things has dropped modestly, most of the declines have come from people who are buying the truck strictly for appearance purposes.
In 2004, nearly one-fourth of pickup truck buyers, 24.8 percent, fell into this appearance category, CNW data shows.
Today, they make up less than 6 percent of pickup buyers.
”The appearance buyer is totally out of the market; he’s gone,“ Spinella said. ”That’s been the vast majority of the decline.“
Tags: Ford F-150 pickup