DEARBORN, Mich., May 1, 2018 -- Ford Motor Company U.S. sales for April totaled 204,651 vehicles, a 4.7 percent decline, but Sales Analyst  Erich Merkle says the F-Series posted its best April results in 18 years while the new Expedition was up 29 percent at retail.

Here to explain is Erich Merkle.

Cut #1 “Now we had a really good industry in March, but in April we estimate that the industry was down about 6-7 percent at retail and our retail sales were down about 3 percent, so we did better than the industry, but overall the whole  industry was a bit soft.” :17

F-Series is now reporting 12 consecutive months of year-over-year increases and according to Merkle, it just keeps on rolling.

Cut #2 “In April we sold over 73,000 F-Series, and for the month of April that marks our best year going all the way back to 2000, so it was a very strong month for F-Series.” :11

Expedition is spending an average of just 17 days on dealer lots and Merkle says sales were up almost 26 percent in April.

Cut #3 “We saw most of our growth, biggest gains coming from the West, so the western region of the country was up almost 60 percent, so we’re really hitting on all cylinders with  Expedition and real  pleased with the performance of the all-new product.” :14

Merkle says the company continues to see a rotation of consumers going out of cars and into SUV’s, both large and small.  If you take a look at the small SUV segment this year, it is larger than both the small car and mid –size car segments combined.

Cut #4 “So the small SUV segment, bar none, it is the largest  segment in the market, it isn’t going away, but we continue to see growth not just from small, but we’re also seeing growth from mid-size and large SUVs as well." :13

EcoSport volumes continue to grow as well.

Cut #5 ”Yeah, EcoSport  we had our best sales month to date, we sold 5,277 of them and we’re getting our strongest performance is coming from the eastern region of the country, places like New York, Boston and Philadelphia.” :14

Navigator sales were up 135 percent at retail and 122 percent overall.

Cut #6 “So we saw triple digit increases in every region of the country and we really had some strong increases on Navigator in the western region of the country, which would include California,  where we saw sales up 188 percent, so it’s really a strong new performer for us and we’re so happy to have it.”  :19