The Ford F-Series Is Still America’s Favorite
Ford’s F-Series is officially the best-selling truck in the U.S. for the 48th year in a row, with Ford confident enough to stake its claim even before 2024 is officially over.
With more than 33 million examples sold since 1977, the F-Series has also maintained a 43-year streak as America’s top-selling vehicle.
Now in its 14th generation the F-Series was introduced in 1948 and was the first dedicated truck platform from Ford, with previous utility vehicles sharing underpinnings with cars. Over time the tables would be turned, and without the F-Series there would have been no Bronco, Expedition or Excursion SUVs.
By the third quarter of 2024 a total of 550,835 F-Series had been sold, which was actually a slight drop on the previous year, but still enough to comfortably outsell the Chevrolet Silverado, Dodge Ram and Toyota Tundra.
Ford also claims the F-Series leads the field with a range of features from offering the most exportable power of any gas-powered pickup to providing the maximum available payload of 8000 lbs and the best in class towing capacity of 40,000 lbs on Super Duty models. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of technology to make trucking easier such as BlueCruise hands-free highway driving and an array of trailer assist features. There’s also the widest range of powertrains in a pickup with gas, diesel, PowerBoost hybrid and the all-electric drive of the F-150 Lightning all available.
While internal combustion still makes up by far the majority of F-Series sales the Lightning is proving to be more than a flash in the pan, with 28,313 sold by the end of of November 2024, marking a 39 percent rise over 2023.
“The enduring legacy of the F-Series is not just a result of our relentless pursuit of improvement but also a reflection of the trust between Ford, our dealers and customers,” said Andrew Frick, President of Ford Blue “We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve our customers and are committed to continuing to earn their business every single day.”
These are not the trucks they used to be. The quality issues are hurting and the Aluminum body cost are hurting profits.
I still laugh the best selling deal. Many years GM sold more with GMC. To be honest best selling means little Today. The most profitable is what really matters.
Who ever put all the sensors in the tail lamps never considered work truck customers. The lamps are $2900 and are now being stolen. Keep the sensors in the bumper.
The combined Chevy + GMC sales have always been competitive and I’ve seen frequently outsell the Ford. I see so many things like the sensors you mentioned not designed for people who do actual work with their trucks.
Yes, tail light on trucks take major abuse. To run up the price that much just to get them in one part is not customer friendly.
Headlight are not much better GM headlight assembly is $1600 plus $250 core charge. It’s not just Ford.
GM twins outsold F150 multiple times in the last 50 years. It’s an asterisk that goes with any article like this because calling them different trucks (Chev vs. GMC) is a thin argument at best for almost every generation since C10 was a new idea.
Ford also likes to use F series which counts 150 to 550 trucks. Many of the higher number trucks are fleet sales they heavily discount.
As my statistics teacher said you can make number say anything.
A nice feather to again have in the truck division cap. One I’m sure the guys and gals in marketing are happy to have. The copy writes itself. I wonder if they’re already thinking about 50 or best not to count your chickens before they hatch. Always thought it would be cool to have a fleet of ‘through the years’ trucks as track support vehicles (read Nascar). Thoroughly modern but vintage in looks right down to the graphics. Having say a 55, 71 and new Lightning converge to do track cleanup and/or should draw more than enough brand attention to be worth the while.
The lighting I believe has really fooled folks. It is really more converted truck vs a fully developed EV truck. It is already out dated. The large discount are what moved them as did curious buyers.
The Lightning should have come with a Coyote/Whipple setup, not some electric truck.
Guess thats why I don’t work in the naming dept at Ford
Ha, when I finally learned that the only way to change the front O2 sensors on my 2014 F-150 Ecoboost 4×4 was to remove the entire cab and bed and elevate it 6′ in the air to access the sensors, I said to myself, “Self, there’s got to be a better way.” It’s obvious that such lousy engineering is intentional on Ford’s part, to make their products totally unserviceable by the owner, and in doing so, they (and all the other vehicle manufacturer’s playing that same game) have lost me forever as a new vehicle purchaser. Now I buy gently used vehicles and when they decide to die, they get donated to Kars4Kids and I find another ride. I’m done being a slave to as much of this new vehicle technology as possible…
Sounds like an opinion piece. No data to back it up! How many trucks did GM sell? Dodge? Where’s the breakdown by model…150. 250 etc
bought my 64 f-250 4×4 when i got out of college in 1978 . still driving it .
98% of all F-150s sold are still on the road……..the other 2% made it home!