Ford reported today that the F-Series has retained the title of America’s best-selling pickup truck for the 46th year in a row. That title did not, however, come with a sales record for the vehicle, as deliveries were down 12 percent in 2022.
The blue oval said on Tuesday that it sold a total of 640,000 trucks in 2022, which, in addition to making it the best-selling truck in America for the 46th year in a row, made it the best-selling vehicle in the country for the 41st consecutive year.
“The Ford truck team’s ability to anticipate customer needs, continuously innovate, and provide best-in-class levels of capability and performance has helped make F-Series the sales leader time and time again,” said Kumar Galhotra, president, Ford Blue. “We’re honored and humbled that our customers have helped us achieve this milestone for more than four decades.”
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Although Ford sold one F-Series truck every 49 seconds last year, it sold more vehicles in 2021. That year, the automaker reported sales of 726,004, about 86,000 more than it did in 2022. That figure, meanwhile, was already down by 7.8 percent as compared to 2020 when it sold 787,400 pickups. Before the pandemic, meanwhile, the brand was selling close to 900,000 F-Series trucks per year, reports CNBC.
Analysts report that a portion of the shortfall is down to tight supply lines. These have dogged Ford, which has struggled to keep production rolling at its plants through the pandemic, though it attempted to minimize those delays by partially building trucks as they awaited semiconductor chips.
Regardless, Ford writes that it sold so many F-Series trucks in 2022 that if they were lined up end-to-end, they would stretch for more than 2,400 miles (3,862 km), farther than the distance from Los Angeles to Detroit.
Ford is expected to report its total year-end sales figures later this week. While sales reporting from its competitors is likely to confirm that Ford has sold more trucks than either Chevrolet or GMC, taken together, the GM brands are likely to have been purchased more times than the F-Series in 2022.
