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October 2018 Sales


Assimilator

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Ford is down 3.9% and Lincoln is down 15%.

 

Cars obviously causing the most loss as Focus and C-Max inventory is finally drying up. Despite weakness in Escape and Flex, Ford's utility sales are up on strong demand for Explorer and Expedition.

 

Lincoln suffering another big monthly loss this year with cars losing 32% and utilities down 5.7% despite strong year over year performance for Navigator.

 

https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2018/11/01/sales-18-october.pdf

 

All things considered, I'm impressed by how well Ford is softening the carpocalypse in their total volume, only down 2-3 percent for the year.

 

Ford's crossover business is still deceptively weak since every model is actually down, but adding EcoSport more than offsets the loses from everything else this year, especially in Escape.

 

I think we are all just holding our breath on Lincoln at this point. New stuff is coming, it should restore Lincoln's loses assuming we are in a good economy when it all arrives (which is looking more doubtful). If Lincoln can't snap back with 3 new utilities by this time next year...then something is wrong for sure.

Edited by Assimilator
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Assimilator, do you think Hackett will give the OK to kill the Lincoln brand if that happens? I think Alan Mulally came close to doing that back around 2010.

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Hackett can only recommend it...Ford family will stand by Lincoln until the end of time since it was Edsels' baby to begin with....they already agreed to shutter Mercury (when Alan Mulally was at the helm) which Edsel created from scratch as a stepping stone to Lincoln from Ford. I believe there was a promise to save Edsels' legacy through Lincoln at the expense of Mercury since Lincoln was Edsels' dream of greater things for the FoMoCo...Lincoln ain't going anywhere.

Edited by twintornados
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Thanks, Assimilator for the link. Lots of stuff to think about in this. It is generally unsurprising as it continues a trend.

 

On Lincoln, I think you are right. We should have a better sense of things over the course of the next 12 months. The refreshed/rebranded Nautilus should help take MKX/Naut sales back up to where they used to be, if not higher, as some of the 'X drop off has probably been due to waiting for the refresh. Still, some former would-be MKX buyers and prospective Nautilus buyers might still be doing some waiting, hoping to become Aviator buyers. Everyone expects great things from the Aviator this spring, with lots of positive press and car-buyer buzz. It could even become Lincoln's second place seller in volume and top seller in profits, at least for a while. MKC sales will likely continue to ease back as the year goes along, with some going for the Nautilus and others waiting for the redesigned/renamed Corsair next fall. If Lincoln sales are still struggling this time next year, with the refreshed/rebranded Nautilus, the all-new Aviator and redesigned/rebranded Corsair having all come out in that time -- all smack-dab in the middle of the hottest-selling segment (compact crossover, and two mid-sized crossovers) -- then yeah it's got some serious problems. On the other hand, if the economy holds up it is very likely we'll see some strong numbers finally coming out of Lincoln.

Edited by Gurgeh
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Lincoln is obviously heading in the wrong directly at the moment, but we are also on the cusp of the most new products it has launched in a single year. Granted, all of that is the steam left over from the previous administration which prioritized Lincoln. I don't think Lincoln has the advocacy it once did, probably because it's a struggling operation that doesn't return investment and Ford can't handle that right now. I really have zero sense on what Hackett thinks of Lincoln, they never talk about it and Lincoln doesn't talk about itself anymore, and now Lincoln just suddenly lost its product manager without a replacement.

 

I have a hard time picturing Lincoln being shuttered with so much promising new product and commitments in China. But if I were making decisions at Ford, I would definitely shutter Lincoln, it's more corporate pet project than a valuable growth business. They've struggled for decades and it's clear this isn't something essential to their future, it certainly has failed way too frequently at returning its investment. I think Ford could easily re-absorb Lincoln into its utility range by offering more premium models.

Edited by Assimilator
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I don't think Corsair or Nautilus will actually move the needle much, Aviator should get plenty of attention. I think Navigator has likely peeked out, sales are not growing month to month.

 

I think Lincoln has at least a few more years to make decisions.

Edited by Assimilator
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F Series sales were off by 5,500 but still just over 70,000.

 

I don't think that decline in F-Series sales is worrisome. In October 2017, Ford offered lots of incentives to clear out 2017 F-150 inventory. The refreshed and improved 2018 F-150 started selling in high volume around that time too. So last October was a particularly strong month for F-Series. Hard to beat or match those numbers.

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All you have to do is look at Monthly and YTD for analysis, no need to report quarterly.

 

You are correct sir that car sales analysis can be done with the monthly and YTD numbers. But quarterly reporting is better suited for media press releases and for investors. As akirby said, quarterly numbers smooth out short term fluctuations. Plus for investors a quarterly schedule for sales data matches up with financial data releases.

 

I figured other automakers would join GM and Tesla for quarterly sales reporting in the U.S. But so far that hasn't happened.

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Lincoln is obviously heading in the wrong directly at the moment, but we are also on the cusp of the most new products it has launched in a single year. Granted, all of that is the steam left over from the previous administration which prioritized Lincoln. I don't think Lincoln has the advocacy it once did, probably because it's a struggling operation that doesn't return investment and Ford can't handle that right now. I really have zero sense on what Hackett thinks of Lincoln, they never talk about it and Lincoln doesn't talk about itself anymore, and now Lincoln just suddenly lost its product manager without a replacement.

 

I have a hard time picturing Lincoln being shuttered with so much promising new product and commitments in China. But if I were making decisions at Ford, I would definitely shutter Lincoln, it's more corporate pet project than a valuable growth business. They've struggled for decades and it's clear this isn't something essential to their future, it certainly has failed way too frequently at returning its investment. I think Ford could easily re-absorb Lincoln into its utility range by offering more premium models.

 

I disagree. I think there's a point where Ford tops out.

 

I think the problem with Lincoln (well, and Ford in general) is that every time they've tried, they never push over the hump/keep pushing. They have a good push, and start getting some momentum, and then they stop, and things fade, and they're back to square one. It seems like they've finally started taking Lincoln seriously now, and I'm hopeful Aviator will show them the potential the brand has.

 

 

GM went to quarterly reporting because it was tired of defending itself on month by month anomalies,

it only became an issue when GM sales were consistently down for no apparent reason.

 

Yet, now everyone now just guesstimates and reports the numbers anyway, without any narrative or explanation from GM.

 

Lincoln's whole website needs an overhaul.

 

Agreed - they use the same basic setup as the Ford site and I don't know if it works well.

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Ford definitely needs Lincoln to be a separate brand to support the premium service experience (pickup/dropoff is fantastic), longer warranty and different styling to compete with other luxury makes in the $50K+ price range.

 

I also agree that Lincoln has never been given the opportunity to really show what it's capable of, but I think the new Navigator and Aviator will finally change that. And they are starting to get some really nice stand alone dealerships although that tranformation will take a long time. Having truly premium products bringing in more $60K+ sales should help a lot.

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Ford definitely needs Lincoln to be a separate brand to support the premium service experience (pickup/dropoff is fantastic), longer warranty and different styling to compete with other luxury makes in the $50K+ price range.

 

I also agree that Lincoln has never been given the opportunity to really show what it's capable of, but I think the new Navigator and Aviator will finally change that. And they are starting to get some really nice stand alone dealerships although that tranformation will take a long time. Having truly premium products bringing in more $60K+ sales should help a lot.

I was talking to the owner of a local Black Label stand-alone Lincoln dealership (the only stand-alone in the DC metro area) and he is thrilled with Lincoln's new policy of requiring a dealership to be stand-alone to be Black Label certified (existing combined BL dealers are grandfathered). He said he is making tons from selling BL Navigators -- the only configuration he orders now.

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I was talking to the owner of a local Black Label stand-alone Lincoln dealership (the only stand-alone in the DC metro area) and he is thrilled with Lincoln's new policy of requiring a dealership to be stand-alone to be Black Label certified (existing combined BL dealers are grandfathered). He said he is making tons from selling BL Navigators -- the only configuration he orders now.

 

You know, I thought they always had to be standalone to be BL (the only BL ones I know of in south Florida were standalone), but then a few months ago, the nearby Ford/Lincoln dealer became a BL dealer.

 

Good to see they're going back to that.

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Lincolns problems are multi-faceted: momentum, engineering, design, marketing, messaging, pedigree, expertise, brand equity, funding, confidence, consumer research, etc.

 

Lincoln is working with a shoe-string budget with a tiny development team . It's hard not to see the compromise or the inconsistency from a corporate parent in constant turmoil. I think Lincoln is making decent products but they are nowhere near the cultural phenomenon they need to be to rise above decades of brand weakness and intermittent neglect. And more importantly, Lincoln is still learning how to make cars and address their market and I'm not sure Ford has the expertise, funding, or interest to continue this unyielding experiment. Lincoln may be moving too slowly to find momentum, no matter what's ahead, they are just going to stay where they are unless they do something that stands out. Right now Lincoln is measured by how much better they are than they were, but they never measure up favorably to the market. Navigator has been and remains the only exception, but that never extends to the rest of the brand.

Edited by Assimilator
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I was talking to the owner of a local Black Label stand-alone Lincoln dealership (the only stand-alone in the DC metro area) and he is thrilled with Lincoln's new policy of requiring a dealership to be stand-alone to be Black Label certified (existing combined BL dealers are grandfathered). He said he is making tons from selling BL Navigators -- the only configuration he orders now.

 

Is that the Lincoln dealership near New Carrollton Amtrak and Metrorail station?

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Is that the Lincoln dealership near New Carrollton Amtrak and Metrorail station?

 

Yes, East West Lincoln.

 

And to Assimilator's point, I don't believe that up until now Lincoln dealers were required to be stand-alone to qualify for being a Black Label dealer, but it was generally more challenging to do so if combined with a Ford dealer. The reason is that Lincoln required the dealer to make a substantial payment -- around $100,000 I think -- as well as creating a Black Label-specific lounge, something that is typically hard to do in a combined dealership where very little space is dedicated to Lincoln, much less having enough room to create the BL lounge. If you sell enough Lincolns you can easily recoup the initial investment because Black Labels are such high-profit products. But if you don't, it isn't really worth your while.

 

The change to allowing Black Label certification only for stand-alones involves two things. First, Lincoln wants Black Label clients to have a real luxury car-buying experience and you don't tend to get that with salesmen who mostly sell F-150s and Explorers (as good as those are) and don't tend to know the Lincoln products as well. Second, Lincoln wants to create more incentive for combined dealerships to split off their Lincoln line and create a dedicated Lincoln dealership. If a dealer is doing that creating the BL lounge is pretty easy. At least, that is how I understand it.

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