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April 6, 2008
Nobody likes a rat race -- not unless they're winning. At the moment, Ford Motor Co. has the U.S. sales lead over Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp. In January, Toyota started the year by bumping Ford out of the No. 2 position, with 171,849 sales. In February, Ford took back the No. 2 slot, bringing year-to-date sales to 355,336 -- a slim lead of just 1,318 cars and trucks. But in March, Ford pulled even further ahead and now has a much safer lead of more than 10,000 vehicles. Ford owes most of this performance to double-digit gains by just a few Ford products: the Edge crossover (up 47.2% this year, compared with the same period a year ago), the Focus compact car (up 23.2%), the Ranger compact pickup (up 16.8%) and the Escape (up 13.5%). But one of the biggest new selling points at Ford might not be a vehicle at all. More than 100,000 Fords have now been sold with Sync, the company's hands-free entertainment and communications technology, which was developed with Microsoft
LINK:Inside Detroit autos | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press
Nobody likes a rat race -- not unless they're winning. At the moment, Ford Motor Co. has the U.S. sales lead over Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp. In January, Toyota started the year by bumping Ford out of the No. 2 position, with 171,849 sales. In February, Ford took back the No. 2 slot, bringing year-to-date sales to 355,336 -- a slim lead of just 1,318 cars and trucks. But in March, Ford pulled even further ahead and now has a much safer lead of more than 10,000 vehicles. Ford owes most of this performance to double-digit gains by just a few Ford products: the Edge crossover (up 47.2% this year, compared with the same period a year ago), the Focus compact car (up 23.2%), the Ranger compact pickup (up 16.8%) and the Escape (up 13.5%). But one of the biggest new selling points at Ford might not be a vehicle at all. More than 100,000 Fords have now been sold with Sync, the company's hands-free entertainment and communications technology, which was developed with Microsoft
LINK:Inside Detroit autos | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press
