Ford Motor Company June 2014 U.S. sales of 222,064 vehicles declined 6 percent from a year ago. Retail sales of 145,989 vehicles declined 5 percent, while fleet sales of 76,075 vehicles declined 7 percent. Ford Sales Analyst, Erich Merkle says the sales number decline came as no surprise to the company.

“It didn’t come as a surprise, simply because when you start taking a look at what we’re having to do with F-Series, we’re having to manage our inventory today, so we have to maximize our production output and grow our inventory volume, so we’re pulling back on some of our F-Series spend, which creates a lower number. F-Series was down about 11%, but that is by design so that we can allow our inventories to actually increase between now and the fall as we go into the change over and we take down our plants for the change over to the all-new F-150.”

On the other hand, both the Fusion set sales records in the month of June.

“It was up 14% overall and our retail sales were up even more, at 22% and Fusion continues to really perform in the West. In the western region of the country Fusion was up 24% And we are having record retail sales results for the first half of this year coming out of the Western region of the country.”

Transit Connect posted a best-ever sales month and best-ever June performance.

“Transit Connect sales were up 30% and retail Transit Connect sales were up 55%, what’s really helping that out, is the Transit Connect Wagon, as we’re starting to see more and more of these vehicles get into the hands of consumers, we’re finding that consumers really like the Transit Connect Wagon.”

Merkle says as Ford goes forward in 2014, the company will continue to manage F-Series inventories.

“We have to make sure that we have higher levels of inventory as we go into the change-over. So F-Series along with a pull-back in our daily rental volumes is going to place a little bit of weight on our sales as we go through the remainder of this year.”

Lincoln sales were down 3% in the month of June, but sales were up 16% year-to-date through June and Merkle says the MKC is just now beginning to make an impact.

“Right now we’re getting the new MKC out there, into dealer lots, there still in very short supply, but when we get them out there in takes on average about 10 days to move an MKC off dealer lots. As the MKC arrive on lots they’re being picked-up very quickly.”