Ford Picking Up on 2009 Ford F-150 Production

With gas prices at a five-year low, this could be a viable turnaround strategy for Ford as sales for its F-150 truck pick up (literally).
While the troubled automaker doesn’t harbor expectations that truck sales will ever return to previous levels, the tough market in November saw Ford its narrowest sales drop—18.6 percent—of any Ford vehicle. Ford’s 2009 F-150 is experiencing a stronger-than-expected demand, all things considered.

“Frankly, a lot of regions and dealers in those regions are really concerned about their truck inventory,” said Jim Farley, Ford group vice president of marketing and communications, said Tuesday. “We’re starting to see quite a few regions where they’re trading trucks across state now because we’ve run out of ’08s, and the ’09 shipment is not as fast as they would want.”

Having scrapped two of its production lines five months earlier, Ford will now restore a shift at its Kansas City plant in January. Its not peaches and cream all around though; because of the shift restoration in Kansas, Ford will not be going through with plans to retool its Dearborn, Mich., F-150 plant.

According to a Ford spokeswoman, there will not be a major recall of employees, though some temporary workers may be brought back to fill in for departing employees taking retirement and buyout packages. Workers who formerly assembled Ford Escapes got lucky. Declining Escape sales might have cost them their jobs, but instead they will now be working on F-150s.

Our take? As the only domestic automaker to not require an immediate life-line from the government, Ford is working hard on a turnaround that may not succeed even if everything goes according to plan. Worsening economic conditions could easily stagger much needed sales, and the Bush administration is reluctant to support any sort of automaker loan.

While the Middle East will be happy with more gas guzzlers on American roads once again, jacking up oil demand, note the 2009 F-150 will be arriving with a host of fuel-saving technology, including Ecotec.

via Automotive News