Northwest Truck Sales Set The Pace -- Ford's F-Series Trucks Top Local Best-Seller List

Nothing works like a Chevy truck, unless you've driven a Ford lately. And, according to industry figures, a great and growing number of people here do.

Pickup trucks of all descriptions are the best-selling vehicles in the United States. But, as with automobile sales, the Pacific Northwest remains a trend-setter. Truck sales in this region are well ahead of U.S. numbers.

The reasons are cliche, but according to industry experts and the dealers themselves, they are still valid: a diverse, outdoors-minded populace, year-round inclement weather, wide utility and a broad nonconformist streak among vehicle buyers here. What sells in L.A. just doesn't do the job here.

``The Pacific Northwest has a lot of outdoors-oriented, active people,'' said Glen Grant, owner of one of the largest Chevrolet dealers in the Northwest. ``Four-by-four trucks, large and small, are very intriguing to people for their utility.''

The giants of this vehicle market niche are, naturally, Ford and Chevrolet. Ford, as it has for the past five years, leads all pickup truck manufacturers in Northwest sales with a 28.4 percent market share. That includes a 44.2 percent share of the full-size truck market. Out of total 1989 regional sales of 180,800, Ford dealers rolled 51,400 trucks, and Chevrolet outlets accounted for approximately 44,500.

Nationally, the automakers are seeing a decline in the number of cars sold, but truck sales, especially light trucks (half-ton and under), continue to push upward.

The full-size, F-series trucks are the best-selling vehicle in a district (as defined by Ford's sales division) encompassing Washington, most of Oregon and a portion of Idaho. In 1989, Ford sold 22,000 F-series trucks, and approximately 10,500 of the smaller Rangers.

By comparison, the best-selling passenger car, Honda's Accord, sold 5,400 units in the Bellingham-to-Tacoma area.

``Trucks represent 50 percent of our overall business,'' said Bruce Mennella, owner of Southgate Ford in Burien. ``The demand has been so great that we couldn't keep up. We're finally getting more trucks in, but what's held us back is availability.''

The competition for smaller trucks is much stiffer, due to the strong presence of Japanese manufacturers like Toyota, Mazda, Nissan and Isuzu, as well as American marques like Dodge, GMC and Jeep. In addition, the target audience for light trucks is very different from their bigger brethren.

``We sell a lot of (smaller) Rangers to young guys,'' said Mike Bickford of Bickford Ford & Mercury in Snohomish, whose family-owned dealership boasts the highest pickup-truck volume in the Pacific Northwest. ``There is something they like, something macho, probably, about sitting up high, and not just driving a car.''

Even with that, however, Bickford says that the F-series vehicles account for half of the dealership's entire monthly sales - 60 to 65 trucks per month.

Conversely, market for full-size pickups, like the dominant Ford F-series and Chevrolet's 1500, 2500 and 3500-series trucks, is aimed at a buyer looking for a good, versatile utility vehicle, not just a parking-lot status symbol.

``The F-series is definitely more utilitarian, more corporate,'' said Mennella. ``Younger people are the ones buying the Ranger, because they're cheaper, and they can be tricked up,'' he said, referring to the burgeoning small-truck customizing fad. Like Bickford, trucks (large and small) account for 50 percent of Southgate's business, Mennella added.

And, interestingly, local dealers say the truck trend continues to accelerate. Glen Grant noted that trucks have taken the dominant position here in just the past 18-24 months.

``It used to be about a 60/40 split for cars and trucks,'' Grant said. ``About 24 months ago, they were even, and in the last part of 1989, trucks sprinted ahead. In 1989, we sold 465 passenger cars, and 728 trucks. I expect the trend to continue.''