DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s July sales slipped 3.3 percent to 192,743 vehicles as car sales fell sharply and crossover/SUV sales dropped slightly from a year ago.
Car sales tumbled 28 percent, while SUV/crossover sales declined 1.5 percent. The automaker's bright spot in July came in the pickup and van segments, up 10 percent compared with a year ago. A surge in fleet orders, which Ford attributed to order timing, also helped sales.
Ford attributed the decline in part to July 4 deals that pulled ahead more sales than expected in to the last weekend in June vs. the first weekend in July.
While the Lincoln luxury brand's overall sales declined, the hot-selling Lincoln Navigator SUV's sales soared 63 percent. The average transaction price for the Navigator is up about $30,000 to a record $84,300, the automaker said.
For the first seven months of the year, Ford sales are down 2 percent.
Brands: Ford down 2.9%, Lincoln down 11%.
Notable nameplates: F series up 2.1% to 70,949; Mustang down 4.4% to 5,934; Fusion down 22% to 10,822; Explorer up 5.8% to 22,782; Escape down 26% to 20,630; Transit nearly tripledto 10,794; Lincoln Continental down 40% to 573; Lincoln MKC up 8% to 2,300.
Incentives: $4,494 per vehicle, up 2.4% from a year earlier, ALG estimates.
Average transaction price: $36,538, up 3.9% from July 2017, ALG estimates.
Fleet mix: 26%, down six percentage points from June and up six percentage points from July 2017.
Inventory: 605,135, a 75-day supply. That compares with 665,004 vehicles, a 78-day supply, in June.
Quote: "We're definitely running lower on F-series availability due to the Meridian fire," said Mark LaNeve, Ford's head of U.S. marketing, sales and service, referring to a May accident at a supplier plant. "We do anticipate backfilling most of it and get caught up within a month or six weeks or so. ... We currently have a 57-day supply. That's a good 10-12 days lower than we like to run, especially acute on Super Duty. I can't quantify what business we lost, but there was some impact to our sales for the month, no question."
Did you know?: Through July, Ford has sold more than 1.1 million pickups, SUVs, crossovers and vans, which Ford says is more than any other brand.
