Ford shuts Flat Rock for a week- 32% sales drop

[Big Sky]

http://www.autonews.com/article/201...rts-car-sales-fall?cciid=email-autonews-daily

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[EcoVert]

In September, Ford Motor Co. (F) sold 6,429 Mustangs, a 32% year-over-year decline. Thousands of consumers actually showed up, but this was still lower than expected. In fact, year to date, Mustang volume sales have slipped 9% on a year-over-year basis.
In response to this news, Ford has closed its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan for one week. The time frame for the shutdown will be from October 10 – October 17. There are more than 3,000 workers at this plant, but they will all be paid despite the plant being closed. In addition to Mustangs, the plant also produces the Lincoln Continental.
General Motors Company’s (GM) Chevy Camaro outsold the Ford Mustang in September for the first time since October 2014. Total Chevy Camaro sales for the month were 6,577. Based on J.D. Power and Associates, Chevy Camaro incentives totaled $3,409 whereas Mustang incentives totaled $2,602 in September. These incentives might have played a role in the volume sales difference. It’s not as though the Chevy Camaro has been seeing sustainably higher demand. Chevy Camaro volume sales have declined 11.3% year to date on a year-over-year basis.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstories/ford-mustang-production-halted-f/ar-BBxiVJk

 

[thePill]

I think the take away is that Camaros sell fine if they are priced competitively with the Mustang. A 32% drop in sales of any model will make the manufacturer take a step back. Ford does not want to end up like GM with 2X the inventory that they need. That insures they will have to dump the cars with huge incentives- although Ford did have to offer 0% and 4-5K incentives to get rid of the 16's here in the Atlanta area. I think Dodge may be the best positioned of the 3, but all the dealers around here have 5-10 Helllcats sitting on their lots. 70K cars like that are tough sells.

I personally don't like the Camaro styling, but the V6 and SS are mechanically superior cars. Don't know about the turbo 4 since I've never driven one. But really, its hard to buy a car that you just don't like to look at.

6500 sales in a single month IS NOT fine. Especially for a product that's only 10 months old in this genre.

Put it this way... 6500 sales in 2009 brought major changes, 6500 in 2012 brought again, major changes.

Why does production slow before a refresh/redesign? So they don't saturate the market with old cars. They also need to sneak retooling into the mix without confirmation of a newer car in 2018.

The Mustang needs to retool for 2018 sometime. These little stops allow that to happen.

What happens to Camaro in its second model year? It's finished... it didn't come on strong enough to make an impact. The high water mark was waaaaaay back in 2011... It's been a Money Pit ever since.

 

[thePill]

Retooling for the 2018. It will happen again in November, December and maybe again in Q1 2017.

There is a refresh, Ford needs the line to stop so they can retool. The Mustang's inventory is increasing. It's up to 14,500 so that's 2000 more than than last month.

Winter won't see any increases but maintaining 6000-7000 sales throughout will be good enough.

The Camaro lost out on all the year 1 sales. For the Winter the Camaro's sales will naturally take a 20-30% hit. You really can't avoid that in this class... and the Camaro isn't a strong enough product to change the trend. The Mustang's numbers were a surprise so don't expect a tearless Christmas for the Camaro guys. In fact, by Q1, the conversations about the car will probably become gloomy. The Camaro was the way GM was going to pay for the Alpha Platform... it failed...

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