Oct 25, 2010

Pickup truck sales strengthen as farm belt prospers

08:41 AM

Pickup trucks are seeing surprisingly strong demand so far this year in tandem with a boom in America's farm belt.

In this Augus photo, a new Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck is shown at the Planet Dodge Chrysler Jeep dealership in Doral, Fla. CAPTIONBy Wilfredo Lee, APIn the first nine months of the year, pickup sales rose 14% compared to only a 10% gain in new vehicle sales overall, Bloomberg reports citing Autodata figures.

Automakers haven't singled out farmers and ranchers as the reason that truck sales have rebounded so much this year. Rather, they've pointed to stable gas prices, fleet sales and signs that the housing industry is starting to come back from the dead.

"Agriculture is helping out," Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co.'s president of the Americas, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg at a truck event in Texas. Ford's F Series pickup remains the industry's best selling vehicle, and automakers always show off their trucks at the Texas State Fair.

Bloomberg notes U.S. agricultural exports rose to $69.8 billion, from $61 billion, during the first eight months of 2010, according Department of Agriculture data.

Automakers certainly haven't ignored the pickup-truck market. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler's Ram have all rolled out new heavy-duty pickups in the last year -- spending quite a bit of effort trying to outdo each other.

Ram, for instance, is bragging today that its Ram Laramie Longhorn was named as the "Truck of Texas" by the Lone Star State's auto writers.

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