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Toyota set to pass Ford

A 2007 Ford F-150 pickup truck sits on the lot of a Ford dealership in the southeast Denver suburb of Centennial, Colo. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press The Spokesman-Review
A 2007 Ford F-150 pickup truck sits on the lot of a Ford dealership in the southeast Denver suburb of Centennial, Colo. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. likely will see a large sales drop in December, while Toyota Motor Corp. could gain enough to take over Ford’s traditional role as the No. 2 auto company in the U.S. for the month, according to some industry analysts.

Edmunds.com, a research Web site for car buyers that tracks sales data from dealers, is predicting a stunning 19.6 percent drop in Ford sales compared with last December based on data from the first half of the month, while Bank of America analyst Ronald Tadross expects Ford’s dip to be in the 10 to 12 percent range.

If Toyota does unseat Ford, it would be for the second month in a row and the third month of 2006. Toyota passed Ford in U.S. sales for the first time in July.

Jesse Toprak, chief economist for Edmunds, said Toyota likely will claim the No. 2 spot for the year in 2007, although Ford could bounce back for a few months during the first half of the new year.

He predicted Ford’s December sales would drop mainly because it stopped producing the venerable Taurus, which was once the nation’s top-selling car. Ford sold more than 5,700 Tauruses in November even though production stopped in October.

Also, truck sales will decline during the month, hitting Ford hard because its F-150 pickup is the nation’s largest-selling vehicle, Toprak predicted.

“They’re going to be down in pretty much every single segment,” Toprak said. “They really did not have any new products that will bring excitement and showroom traffic to a great extent.”

Toyota, on the other hand, likely will see a 7.3 percent increase for December, Toprak predicted.

Even Ford sounds like it’s conceding No. 2 to Toyota, predicting a market share of 14 to 15 percent for the next two years while Toyota’s share through the first 11 months of 2006 was 15.3 percent and growing.

“We cannot be distracted about things like that,” said George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst who added that the company is focused on returning its business to profitability. Ford lost $7 billion during the first three quarters of 2006.

Toprak, who based his predictions on dealer sales figures for the first two weeks of the month, also said Ford’s F-150 sales would be hurt in December by new pickup offerings from General Motors Corp. and Toyota.