Whether or not the strength has been aided by the loss of the existing fleet due to the hurricanes in the South, auto sales for the month of September have absolutely been on fire. That strength in sales has been evident in truck sales too. We like to track sales of pickup trucks (specifically at Ford) as they are often a sign of strength or weakness in the small business and construction sectors, and based on these numbers from Ford, the small business sector looks strong.In the month of September, total F-Series truck sales at Ford totaled 82.3K. As shown in the chart below, that qualifies as the second strongest September sales total of F-Series trucks for Ford since at least 1996, trailing only September 2004 when total sales were 99.7K.
With this year’s strong September, total YTD sales of F-Series trucks from Ford now total 658.6K. That’s more than 10% above the YTD total through last year at this time and is the fourth highest YTD total through September dating back to 1996. The only years where the YTD run rate was stronger were 2004 (698K), 2005 (695K), and 2000 (683K).
