Ford F-150 tops Toyota Camry as most American car
The 2013 Ford F-150 Super Duty has a towing capacity of 18,500 lbs. Credit: Ford
Ford Motor Co.’s F-150 pickup, pacing the biggest gain in U.S. market share among automakers this year, topped a consumer website’s list of most-American made models, replacing Toyota Motor Corp.’s Camry sedan.
The F-150 snapped a four-year streak for the Camry and earned the No. 1 spot in Cars.com’s 2013 American-Made index, the website said today in an emailed statement. The index ranks model lines based on their sales and whether the car or truck parts and the completed vehicles are built in the U.S.
Ford’s F-Series trucks have propelled the biggest U.S. sales increase among major automakers this year, climbing 22 percent through the end of May. The automaker said last month that it’s adding 2,000 workers and a third shift at its F-150 factory in Missouri to increase pickup production beginning in the third quarter. The F-150 also is assembled at a plant in Dearborn, Mich., where the company is based.
“Ford’s top ranking this year is a good indicator of how pickup trucks are dominating auto sales so far in 2013, and how the domestic automakers are bouncing back,” Patrick Olsen, Cars.com’s editor-in-chief, said in the statement.
While the assembly point and domestic parts content of the F-150 didn’t change from 2012 to 2013, vehicle sales are responsible for bumping the F-150 to the top spot, Olsen said.
Ford light vehicle deliveries climbed 13 percent this year through May to 1.05 million, according to Autodata Corp. The automaker boosted its market share by 0.8 percentage point during that span to 16.4 percent, the Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based researcher said in an e-mailed statement.
Evenly Split
Toyota’s Tundra was the only other pickup to make the American-Made index, holding steady year-to-year to rank seventh. The F-150 previously held the top spot on the list from 2006 to 2008.
The top 10 was evenly split between domestic and foreign- owned brands. Toyota had the most brands on the index’s list, taking four spots, while General Motors Co. took three and Ford, Honda Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC each took one place.
Cars.com is owned by Classified Ventures LLC, which also operates Apartments.com., another consumer shopping site.
