DEARBORN, Mich., Aug 2, 2016 - Ford Motor Company’s total truck sales, including pickups and vans, grew 5 percent in July versus a year ago with 87,104 sold. Overall company U.S. sales were down 3 percent, with 216,479 total vehicles sold.  Here to explain, Ford Sales Analyst, Erich Merkle.

Cut #1  “Well what we’re seeing here in terms of the month of July.  We start in the second half getting into some very difficult year over year comparisons.  So we estimate that the industry was flat in July, but for the remainder of the year, we continue to see retail and industry sales strong, but down versus record 2015 levels and not as strong as we previously expected.” :28 sec.

Let’s talk about the bright spot, Ford vans up 26 percent in sales, led by Transit.

Cut#2 “When you look at the bright spot with in our sales for the month, Ford vans were up 26 percent, and a lot of that was driven by the success of transit which was up 41 percent.  So we continue to do very well on the van side of our business, but we continue to caution people about the industry and that it’ll likely be down just a little bit  here as we move through the second half of the year.” 24 sec.

Ford F-Series sales total 65,657 pickups – down 1 percent.  Was that expected?

Cut#3 “So we were down one percent which is pretty comparable to what we had last year, however if we take a look at the retail portion of F-Series you would actually find that, retail we had our best July in a decade and it was our best retail sales performance for F-Series so far this year.” :18 sec.

Every month, for some time now, Lincoln continues to inch up in sales why is that?

Cut#4 “Lincoln’s retail sales were up 2 percent.  So given where the segment is running right now Lincoln is really holding up very well, and a lot of that, positive strength for Lincoln is coming from MKZ, where the sales were up 12 percent and that’s driven primarily by the new MKZ,  that’s now out on dealer lots, and also the MKX which was up 5 percent.” :24 sec.