Falcon tops Commodore sales

The Melbourne-based carmaker is looking at the light at the end of the tunnel with cautious confidence, brought about by solid forward orders of its high-end Falcon range and good signs for the facelifted Territory.  Ford Australia boss Marin Burela said Fiesta has grown its share but the Falcon result — particularly the model mix and private share — was outstanding news for Ford in October.

"Our desire was to do something special with Falcon sedan, dating back to 2006, we outsold Falcon sedan vs Commodore sedan.  "I can't tell you what great celebration and great delight there was in this — our share on Falcon sedan has grown over the last year from 25 to 35 per cent in sedan.   We're extremely excited by that, I can't tell you how delighted we were with that."

Burela is pleased with the Falcon sedan result but the good news is also coming from its imported line-up.  "The biggest challenge we had was maintaining our supply to dealers, we exceeded out targets on Focus, Falcon, Ute, Ranger, Transit, we had our best Ranger 4x4 private sales ever, the second best Ranger sales on record," he says.

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Burela believes the company has lost Territory sales because the factory was failing to match demand for the facelifted SUV, something the company was rectifying.  "We're focussed to get the car from build to dealer in a streamlined process.  "I think we're losing sales because we don't have enough vehicles in the right locations to meet demand," he says.

The company will make a decision before the end of the first quarter of 2010 on the fate of the Falcon wagon based on market demand for long-serving wagon, which faces competition from within from the Mondeo wagon.  "Mondeo wagon has been pleasing, the wagon is now starting to attract some fleet interest, government, small business and the private buyer ... we're seeing a lot of activity on that,"  Burela says.

The Ford boss is looking to 2010 with cautious optimism and says the company has no non-production days planned for 2010.  "We believe the industry will kick up from the second quarter, we can re-balance quickly if we need to.

"The 2010 market, I'm a glass half full guy, my view is that the industry will be soft in the first quarter, but I think it will be 920-950,000, let's wait and see — we think 2009 will finish 915,000-920,000.  "We have to be cautious with the optimism, there's a lot more work to be done to get the industry back to where it needs to be," he says.