Daily Slideshow: Why Ford Trucks Outsell the Cars Every Time

The breadbasket of the Ford empire.

If you know anything about Ford, you'll know that they like to hedge their bets with the safest option. For decades, that safe nest has been their F-Series. No one needs reminding how much success the F-150 has brought them by itself. However, Ford originally built their name on creating family sedans; if you go back far enough, they pretty much invented it for a wide-scale market. 

These days, as far as Ford's concerned, trucks are in, and cars are on their way out. Ford themselves have recently anticipated that their truck and SUV segments alone will account for 86% of their total production volume by 2020-- a significant increase from the 70% ratio reported in 2017. It's not the success of the F-Series itself that's being taken into question, but rather why it would be apparently succeeding at the expense of Ford's other divisions. What happened?

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You can take a truck to work.

As if we need to tell you!

There's a practical dimension to Ford's trucks that you're obviously not going to find in a luxury sedan or Mustang. Many people who purchase an F-150 are using it as part of their job. Suffice to say, it's a lot easier to justify a major purchase if it's going to help you make more money in the long run.

Part of this has nothing to do with Ford themselves. In a tighter economy, people who might have purchased a car for personal use will find alternatives like carpooling. cabbing, or transit. There isn't an equivalent workaround when it comes to a truck for a job site.

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A welcome sight in urbania.

There was a point where sedans were the cars you would expect to see in urban ridings. Nowadays, the F-150 is a casually accepted sight in the city. It's not like cars have got a significant leg up in urban sensibility either. In fact, many people prefer the visibility and safety of a truck. 

There's also the matter of how a vehicle's use and general "category"  affects a customer's standard for purchase. When it's someone's business at stake, a prospective owner is probably going to want the option with the most established rate of success. The F-150 has been the workhorse for countless successful operations regardless of the vocation. By comparison, car purchases tend to be fickle to a customer's personal concept of "cool."

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Ford cars don't wield the same reputation.

Ask on the street: Do Ford's other products have the same reputation as a good, hardy F-150?

Outside of Ford's trucks, you can probably find people who are just as passionately vocal about their love for the likes of the Mustang, but sports cars have always been more of a niche market, with a fraction of the applications. If the popular sales charts have anything to say, looking good apparently isn't near as attractive to customers as the ability to get things done.

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If nothing else, Ford play to their strengths.

Ford has been on top as long as they have because they know how to ride home on that success. Ford wouldn't hop on a trend unless they surely knew it would pay off for them at some point. By 2020, Ford is slated to have the truck and SUV segments of their roster encompass as much as 86% of their production volume. Clearly, past success will only beget success in the future.

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The F-Series' successful legacy feeds into itself.

You don't make the nation's best-selling vehicle going over 40 years now without picking up some serious respect and trust from customers along the way.

There's an overlooked section of the F-Series' success that stems from the success it's already had. Like any automotive household nameplate like the Chevrolet Corvette or Ford's own Mustang, the longer a brand is cool in the public eye, the more sway it'll have with future purchases. While this has been clearest in the sales of American sports cars (riding on the nostalgia of the classic muscle cars), this "safety in tradition" is surely apparent in trucks as well.

As it stands to date, there is not another vehicle on Earth that has as much traditional sway as the F-150. We may grieve that sedans like the Ford Fusion appear to be on their way out, but there's no question that the amount of time Ford trucks have been on top has played into the success we're seeing today.

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