Ford F-Series: In 2022, one will be sold every 49 seconds

Ford estimates that it will have sold at least 640,000 F-Series pickup trucks in the US in 2022, meaning it will once again be crowned America’s best-selling vehicle.

The company says it sold an F-Series truck every 49 seconds on average last year.

The F-Series lineup includes the high-volume F-150, including the all-electric Lightning variant, as well as the much beefier Super Duty models, ranging from the F-250 to the F-600.

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This is the 46th consecutive year that the F-Series has been the top-selling pickup truck in the United States. The F-Series has also been America’s best-selling vehicle for 41 years.

These records and numbers are impressive, so let’s dig deeper.

Although the F-Series has retained its crown for another year, it’s far from its peak. In 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic hit, Ford managed to sell around 900,000 F-Series models each year.

That fell to 787,422 in 2020 and 726,004 in 2021. Preliminary figures for 2022 released by Ford mean the F-Series is down 12 percent from the previous year.

Much of this decline is likely due to global supply chain issues that have impacted most industries. Monthly sales appear to be holding up well towards the end of the year, so it’s unclear what the impact of inflation, rising interest rates and the general economic climate is now.

According to figures from Car Sales Base, fewer than 650,000 F-Series trucks were sold per year in 2012. The big Ford’s modern low was in 2009, when just 413,625 F-Series models were built after the prime mortgage crisis that bankrupted many companies, including rivals General Motors and Chrysler.

Depending on your thoughts on badge tech, you could argue that GM’s big pickups deserve the 2022 US sales crown.

Although GM has yet to provide any numbers, we expect combined sales for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra to be around 700,000 or 60,000 more than the F-Series.

Since the pandemic, the Silverado and Sierra have surpassed the F-Series with 778,689 movements in 2021 and 848,200 in 2020 combined. Previously, the F-Series outperformed the GM twins for the entire 2010s.

As for the Ram pickup range, we believe it will reach around 480,000 sales in 2022.

MORE: All Ford F-150s