World’s biggest selling pick-up, the Ford F150, isn’t coming to Australia despite a boom in ute sales
IT’S the monster truck of pick-ups and has been the top-selling vehicle in the USA for 33 years in a row. But Ford won’t sell it here.
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THE Ford F150 is the biggest selling ute on the planet. It is so iconic that Australians fit fake grilles to their Thailand-made Ford Ranger pick-ups to try to make them look like the Big Brother from the USA.
But there was sad news for Aussie Ford fans out of Detroit overnight. The ‘blue oval’ brand has officially, formally and categorically ruled out plans to sell the all-new F150 to Australia — even though ute sales are at record levels.
Ute sales in Australia are up by 9 per cent so far this year in a market that has grown by 3.5 per cent — but Ford says the F150 won’t make the boat because we won’t buy enough of them to justify the millions of dollars required to relocate the steering wheel from one side of the cabin to the other.
“We looked at right-hand-drive (for the new generation F150), as we do with all our vehicles, but unfortunately the business case just didn’t add up … there are no plans for a right-hand-drive version,” a high ranking Ford executive told News Corp Australia in Detroit overnight.
The last time Ford sold the mighty F-Series pick-up in Australia was in 2007, when the conversions to right-hand-drive were done in a Ford factory in Brazil.
Instead, Australians who want a US Ford pick-up will continue to be forced to buy vehicles that have been converted locally with hand-made, non-genuine steering systems, and which cost more than $120,000 — more than double their US price — even though they have not been crash-tested or redesigned to meet the same standards as a factory-built right-hand-drive car.
Ford says the Ranger ute more than meets the needs of Australian buyers, has closed the gap to the Toyota HiLux, and has put a serious dent on the market leader’s sales dominance.
There is also a new Ford Ranger due in Australian showrooms in late July or early August with more safety features than any ute on sale today.
The Toyota HiLux, Australia’s favourite workhorse for 35 years, used to account for one-in-three ute sales just seven years ago, but now accounts for one-in-five ute sales because the competition has gotten tougher.
While Ford may be leaving the heavy-duty pick-up market alone, its arch rival, the Dodge Ram, is due Down Under by the end of this year after an independent distributor won the exclusive rights to buy the trucks from the US factory and have them converted to manufacturer standards by a sister company to Holden Special Vehicles.
This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling
Originally published as World’s biggest selling pick-up, the Ford F150, isn’t coming to Australia despite a boom in ute sales
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