Best ever result comes as Ford announces reveal date for next gen.

THE end is nigh – but, so far, it’s going out on a high: That’s the Ford Ranger, on strength of an unsurpassed registrations count for October.

The ute achieved 1627 sales, a best-ever for the nameplate and enough for it to comfortably reign – yet again – as the country’s favourite vehicle for that period.

Thought the buy-in is fuelled by Government intention to put the screws on utes with an emissions tax, which has been delayed until next April, isn’t supported by Ford. It’s says there is some small element of that, but mainly this is more about fulfilling back orders.

Nonetheless, the big uptake also comes with consumers knowing, yet not seeming to care,  these are the final examples of a current generation born in 2011.

Ford makes no secret that a replacement line is almost ready to go into production; though the new rig isn’t on sale until mid-2022, the make announced yesterday, when also sharing a video about the design story (above), it will unveil that next-gen on November 24.

Ranger was core to Ford itself finding success. The brand proper enjoyed more than 2000 vehicle registrations in total; the previous best month was June of 2004, with 1884 vehicles.

 Ford NZ communications manager Tom Clancy expalThethe count came down to being able to fulfil a big back log of orders.

“We’ve had key supply come in and despite all the lockdown challenges managed to get the vehicles off the wharf, to dealerships and ultimately to many patient customers.”

As for Ranger? The best has yet to come. “The majority of the Ranger sales were orders from before the Government’s feebate announcement. We haven’t truly seen that spike yet since the majority of customers who may have been inspired to purchase on that news would still be waiting for delivery.”  

Others also revelled. Toyota New Zealand cites last month as  being particularly decent for its hybrids – as example, 745 of 869 examples of the RAV4, No.2 in the overall top seller count, delivered in October configured in petrol-electric.

Though expectation of a second consecutive big month for Tesla’s Model 3 (top seller in August) didn’t eventuate – it barely made impact - the whole market looked strong, with both passenger and commercial ahead of last year’s comparable totals.

Industry-focused Automedia group, through Autotalk.co.nz, says that for passenger vehicles, registrations were up by 11.6 percent for the month to 9260 units from 8296 in 2020. Year-on-year registrations are now up 39 percent.

Toyota was the top passenger car brand for the month with 2343 units, against 1117 this time last year, for a 25.3 percent market share.

Mitsubishi took second spot (978 units, 10.6 percent share) and Hyundai place third (645, seven percent).

The Motor Industry Association, which represents new vhicle distributors, says year to date there have been 136,886 registrations, an increase of 37,536 units (37.8 percent) compared to the first 10 months of 2020.

 It reminds that October is traditionally a strong month for new vehicle sales and also points out, that while sales were ahead of 2020 they were well behind October returns in each of the years from 2016 to 2019 inclusive.

 Said MIA chief executive David Crawford: “Stock levels remain low, with shipments of new vehicles going through customs, entry compliance and straight onto customers.

“There remain long wait lists for popular models. International and domestic logistic constraints due to Covid-19 and microchip shortages continue to adversely affect the sector.”