---

World's Best-Selling Vehicle - Ford F-Series Pickup - Celebrates 50th Birthday Today

16 January 1998

World's Best-Selling Vehicle - Ford F-Series Pickup - Celebrates 50th Birthday Today

    DETROIT, Jan. 16 -- Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the
Ford F-Series, the No. 1-selling automotive nameplate in the history of the
world.
    It was on January 16, 1948 that the first Ford F-Series pickup truck was
introduced.  That same year, a baby boom year, the Ed Sullivan Show debuted,
Scrabble was introduced, the Cleveland Indians won the World Series, and the
one-millionth television set was sold.
    To date, customers have purchased more than 26 million F-Series trucks
worldwide and more than 8 million are still on the road.  The F-Series has
outsold every vehicle -- car or truck -- in America for the last 16 years
(1981-1997) and it has outsold every truck in the United States for 21
straight years (1976-1997).
    In 1997, the F-Series outsold 38 of 43 franchises doing business in North
America.  It nearly sold as many vehicles as the two best-selling cars in
America combined.
    Today also marks the production startup of the latest in Ford's line of
F-Series trucks, the all-new 1999-model Super Duty F-Series, which will be
built at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky., the largest
automotive assembly plant in North America.

SOURCE  Ford Motor Company