Record Truck Sales in March Rev Up Industry
DETROIT — Record pickup truck sales helped Ford Motor Co. post higher U.S. March sales, the company said Wednesday, as the entire auto industry recorded a stronger-than-expected start to the spring selling season.
Separately, General Motors Corp., long a bit player in the minivan segment, unveiled a trio of new minivans at the New York Auto Show that it hopes will make consumers forget the shortcomings of its ungainly, long-nosed APV minivans.
Ford sold 354,106 light vehicles in March, up 2.2% on a daily selling rate basis from the same period a year ago. The auto maker said it sold 102,817 compact and full-size pickups in March, the highest number of pickups Ford has ever sold in a month.
Including minivans and sport-utility vehicles, Ford sold 194,328 light trucks in the U.S. in March, up 3.5% from last year. Car sales rose 2.3% to 156,187.
Overall, auto makers sold 1,376,491 cars and light trucks in March, an increase of 4.3%. That translates into a seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 15.95 million. Most analysts had expected the sales rate to be in the mid-15-million-unit range.
The March rate exceeded both a strong 15.84-million rate in February and a seasonally adjusted rate of 15.1 million in March 1995. In addition, it means the industry posted first-quarter sales of 3,616,700, an increase of 2.7% over 1995.
“It’s a good month no matter how you slice it,” said John Casesa, analyst at Schroder Wertheim.
Earlier in the week, GM reported total sales of 413,425, down 1.8%. Chrysler Corp. had the best year-over-year results of the Big 3 U.S. auto makers, reporting an 8.1% increase to 217,873.
Analysts attributed the strong sales to a number of factors, including incentives, improving consumer confidence and lower vehicle loan interest rates. Most of the effects of the 18-day strike against GM in mid-March are expected to show up this month, analysts said.
However, the strong pace of auto sales in the first quarter is not sustainable for the rest of the year because of underlying uncertainty in the economy, Chrysler Chairman Robert Eaton said Wednesday. “The strength in the economy is not strong enough to keep that momentum going,” he said.
As for GM’s new minivans, the new Chevrolet Venture, Pontiac TranSport and Oldsmobile Silhouette will go on sale late this year and aim to bring GM into the mainstream minivan market now dominated by Chrysler and Ford.
The new vans were designed as part of a global minivan program that also includes a version for GM’s Adam Opel unit in Europe. All of the vans will be built in Doraville, Ga.
