After decades of being the number one best-selling vehicle in the US Ford’s F-150 pickup truck may be knocked off of its pedestal. The Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups overtook the F-150 for the second quarter of 2021. Most of the blame can be placed at the feet of the global microchip crisis. 

F-150 sales slip to third place

But the F-150 also lost to the Ram 1500 pickup. So for the second quarter of 2021, GM and Stellantis are eating Ford’s lunch. And the numbers aren’t even close. Chevy was able to crank out 164,731 Silverado full-size pickups, easily beating Ford’s numbers. And, it did this with the semiconductor crisis in full swing limiting the production of all vehicles worldwide. But Ram wasn’t far behind.

Stellantis sold 164,232 Ram pickups last quarter. Though easily taking over the F-150 it was still behind Ram’s all-time sales-best quarter in the second quarter of 2019. But the second quarter of 2021 was not kind to Ford.

In the second quarter of 2021, Ford sold only 159,235 F-Series trucks. As a comparison, it sold 233,787 F-150s. This tumbled the F-150 to a third-place finish against both GM and Stellantis in sales. And when you combine the virtually identical GMC Sierra, you can add an additional 75,495 pickups to those Silverado numbers. 

How good is this for GM?

That number put GMC up 40 percent from last year, and 33 percent from 2019 which was a more normal pre-pandemic year. And combined with the Silverado’s numbers puts GM around 50 percent above Ram and Ford. Plus, GM makes massive amounts of profit with its pickups. So in all, things are mighty rosy at GM’s silver silos in downtown Detroit right now. 

GM isn’t resting on its laurels. It is currently about ready to add a fourth pickup truck assembly plant. This should substantially increase its build capacity, further increasing profits. Of course, the current climate for pickup truck sales would need to continue and it looks like it will. 

Things are far from bleak at Ford

But things aren’t bleak at Ford. Far from it. Ford has recently launched some of the hottest products this year. The Bronco Sport and Bronco, Mustang Mach-E, and soon to be available all-electric F-150 Lightning should be padding Ford’s coffers soon. 

These are the right products for 2021 and in spite of the chip shortage, Ford should still see huge sales. Even the Mustang is selling well, though it was overtaken by the Dodge Challenger in the muscle car segment. But at least it is doing better than Chevy’s Camaro.

2021 Camaro sales are only nine percent for the segment

The lowly Camaro has grabbed only nine percent of the muscle car segment. Plagued by a number of ills including GM temporarily stopping production to make more microchips available elsewhere, sales have plummeted. GM says the Camaro will stick around for a while. 

But with these sales numbers, it makes no sense. GM can use the production capacity, microchips, and momentum from more popular, good-selling vehicles. We may be seeing the end of the line for the Camaro. With sales numbers like the Silverado, nobody at GM is thinking about the Camaro right now.