Ford: Minivan, large pickup sales to plunge

The Ford F-150 pickup is the top-selling light truck in the United States, but US pickup sales may hit a 10-year low. (Mike Mergen/Bloomberg News)

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - Ford Motor Co. said industrywide US sales of minivans may fall to a 23-year low this year while large pickups decline to the fewest in a decade as more consumers turn to smaller cars.

Minivan sales may drop below 600,000 for the first time since 1985 and large pickups may slide to fewer than 2 million, a level they have topped annually since 1998, George Pipas, sales analyst for Ford, said yesterday.

"In the 1980s, minivans were America's family car," Pipas wrote in an e-mail. "Today, this category is approaching niche segment status." Pickup sales have been hurt by a declining housing market and may rebound in 2009, he said.

The forecast of the third-largest automaker by US annual sales underscores the difficulty Ford, General Motors Corp., and Chrysler LLC face as high gasoline prices damp demand for the larger pickups and sport-utility vehicles all three rely on more than Asian rivals and the minivans in which Chrysler has been the leader. As first-quarter US sales of cars and light trucks fell 8 percent, those of small cars rose, Pipas wrote.

Standard & Poor's on April 8 forecast total US sales of cars and light trucks to drop to 14.9 million this year, the lowest since 1995. Ford marketing chief Jim Farley said April 1 this quarter will be the toughest of 2008 for auto sales.

Sales for all of last year tumbled 18 percent to 793,335 for minivans and 3.2 percent to 2.15 million for large pickups, while the industry's total declined 2.5 percent to 16.1 million, according to Autodata Corp.

Ford pulled out of the minivan market in 2006. The company plans this year to roll out the seven-passenger Flex, a car-based vehicle it's aiming to sell to families that don't want a traditional minivan. GM also is exiting the segment, leaving it mainly to Chrysler, Toyota Motor Corp., and Honda Motor Co.

Chrysler, which introduced the industry's first minivans in 1983, accounted for 41 percent of first-quarter US sales of the vehicles, down from 43 percent a year earlier, according to Autodata. Sales of its Town & Country and Caravan models fell 25 percent to 67,652, as the industry minivan total declined 21 percent to 165,464, Autodata's figures show.

"The minivan segment is not a niche segment," Steve Landry, Chrysler's executive vice president of sales for North America, said. "It is a very profitable and volume-oriented segment for Chrysler."

The comparison with the 2007 quarter includes short-wheelbase versions of its minivans that Chrysler has eliminated.

In large pickups, Ford's F-Series leads US sales, followed by GM's Chevrolet Silverado and Chrysler's Dodge Ram.