Ford Mustang Sales Fall To Challenger, Outsell Camaro In Q3 2022

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• With such low production number the only thing that I can assume is that the margin of profit must be very large. The 2022 had the gt500 which brings good margin. 2023 will be bad and short. The 2024 is not a game changer and I hope for my ford stocks that it does well

• Ford has dictated what they build and when they build it sales numbers mean nothing. It seems dodge dealers have lots of stock in their lots compared to the Ford dealers hard to sell something you don’t have.

  • Dodge has the right idea. Fill lots with inventory people can buy and gee it works. Winner

    • lol, right up until it comes time to turn or stop (although Dodge and their fans are fine with that). The Mustang and Camaro bury the Challenger when it comes to vehicle dynamics and that's even something the Dodge guys admit and its why they stayed out of the pony car space.

• There's no contest. Challenger is the better vehicle. Makes sense to me.

• The Dodge Challenger looks like what an American muscle car should look like. Ford on the other hand insists on the Mustang still having that japanese looking front end. As far as the *new* design...still looks the same.

  • The Mustang DOES NOT have a "Japanese looking front end." I cannot believe the stuff I read here.

  • New design is weak sauce , 100% agree.

• Part of a larger problem. Ford sales have declined every single year since 2016. Before COVID, supply chain problems, killing sedans. Farley didn’t start it, but he hasn’t fixed it either. They need to rectify their quality issues, start building more vehicles that people really get excited about, and stop believing their own hype.

  • You are conflating sales with net profit.

    Even if sales are down as you say, in the end it is profit that brings the company to see another day.

    Ford has been pretty transparent that they were pruning unprofitable products and operations to shrink the company so as to focus on what makes money so they could then reexpand as a profitable and competitive business.

    Here 2022 so far:
    Ford affirmed its guidance for full-year 2022 results, expecting to bring in an adjusted EBIT of $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion, which would be up 15% to 20% from the previous year. Ford hopes to finish the year strong with $5.5 billion to $6.5 billion in cash.
    TechCrunch, 27 Jul 2022.

    Here are the historical net profit figures from Statistia:
    2021 17,937 (or 7,300 w/o Rivian)
    2020 -1,279
    2019 47
    2018 3,677
    2017 7,731
    2016 4,589
    2015 7,327
    2014 1,260
    2013 11,953
    2012 1,917
    2011 16,894
    2010 6,477
    2009 2,717
    2008 -14,766
    2007 -2,795

    From what I can see, and taking Covid and supply jumbles into consideration it seems that despite Ford’s sales being down, it’s profits haven’t had the same trajectory.

    The only thing I was surprised to see was the amount of cash on hand. This seems like not a lot to me. I recall that in the depths of the recession Ford had cash and credit lines of about 23G$ (this was achieved, in part, by mortgaging the entire company to get those credit lines.). The company was then much bigger at that time and disposing foreign nameplate assets like JLR, VCC, MC, AM, and not having closed capital draining manufacturing operations in AUS, IND, BRZ, CAN, and USA.

    So I looked a little deeper and a Fitch credit rating upgrade from a couple months ago had this to say:

    (The negative part:)
    “For the past several years, Ford's credit profile has been weaker than that of many of its global mass-market peers in the 'BBB' category, such as GM, Stellantis and VW. Ford's EBIT and FCF margins have been lower and gross leverage has been a little higher than these other global auto manufacturers.

    (The positive part:)
    Partially offsetting the credit profile effect of lower FCF and higher leverage, Ford has one of the global auto industry's strongest liquidity positions, providing it with significant financial flexibility.“

    Given that Ford has sold, or closed most or all of its capital burning operations and product segments, Ford is a much smaller company now, with a 30% larger cash and credit cushion and less debt than just a few years ago, one can see that even though units sold is less, and gross sales revenue is down, by pruning away deadwood, Ford is making progress toward renewed growth even in a difficult environment.

    • Thanks, but not conflating anything. As you say, lots of income and expense lines go into net profit. There isn’t necessarily a 1:1 ratio with sales. The Ebidta numbers I have from Macrotrends are different from yours, but the trend from 2016 forward is the same until 2021 when some pent up demand worked its magic. What we really should look at is Ford market share over this period. We, in any event, here are the EBIDTA figures:

      Ford Motor Annual EBITDA
      (Millions of US $)
      2021 $10,483
      2020 $3,049
      2019 $9,064
      2018 $11,616
      2017 $13,453
      2016 $14,503

  • I totality agree. Empty lots les sales.

• One of the reasons Ford will not give up the Mustang, is they will not have an entry in Nascar. They are not about to concede that race series to Chevy and Toyota. It still is free advertising and win on Sunday still creates sales on Monday.

  • The only problem is that the current "Mustang" NASCAR is a Fusion body with Mustang trim. Not a real Mustang. The vehicle almost looks like a phantom Thunderbird which is not being built currently.