Fall of the Mighty Nameplates, Chapter 1: Ford Explorer

Fall of the Mighty Nameplates, Chapter 1: Ford Explorer

By Bill Visnic

It's the toughest of times all around the auto sector, and plunging sales for entire companies, much less individual models and nameplates, currently are the rule, not the exception.

But when a staggering giant of a nameplate comes to our attention thanks to the number crunchers at Edmunds.com, cratering sales become an item that can't be ignored.

Exhibit No. 1: Ford Motor Co.'s Explorer midsize SUV. The model that epitomized the mass-market SUV at the zenith of the genre's popularity now has dissipated to barely a blip on the sales charts.

The Explorer sold more than 388,000 units in 2003. Now, thanks to high gasoline prices, a fractured U.S. economy and a crumbling credit climate, Explorer sales are off more than 40 percent for the year -- and, at 64,339 sold through September, Explorer has virtually no hope of cracking the 100,000-unit mark.

In September, Ford reported sales of 3,498 Explorers (including the Sport Trac), a sickly 67.3 percent plunge from September 2007's 10,690 Explorer sales. But even that drop-off pales to the Explorer nameplate's best-ever month in August 2003, when data from Edmunds.com indicates Ford sold an incredible total of 50,021 Explorers -- nearly 15 times the number of Explorers sold last month.

Explorer currently is tracking to sell in the neighborhood of just 86,000 units this year. Last month, it was outsold by almost every Ford-brand car model, including the Crown Victoria. The only Ford car that did not outsell the Explorer was the Taurus.

Explorer's rapid descent hardly is an aberration, as almost all midsize SUVs on traditional body-on-frame platforms have suffered horrific sales declines at the hands of customers fleeing the segment for more fuel-efficient options with better environmental perception.

Ford telegraphed its intention to shift the Explorer nameplate to a more modern, more fuel-efficient unibody architecture with the unveiling of the Explorer America concept at last January's Detroit auto show. Like prime rival General Motors Corp., Ford is scrambling to recast its model mix away from body-on-frame pickups and SUVs to less bulky and more efficient alternatives.

It is believed Ford plans a unibody Explorer to break cover in 2010 for the '11 model year.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.