Bad News for the Blue Oval Brigade

Ford has been looking in their rear-view mirror at a quickly approaching Toyota, and now the Japanese carmaker has surpassed Ford in domestic sales:

Toyota has accelerated past another road marker on its way to becoming the second largest automaker in the US vehicle market, as its July sales overtook rival Ford's for the first time.

The Japanese carmaker announced Tuesday that it had posted a 16.2 percent sales gain in July as sales struck 241,826 units, surpassing the Ford Motor Co.'s 241,339 sales pace, and marking the first time Toyota has surpassed Ford on a monthly sales pace.

Riding smoothly on the strong launch of its Yaris small car and continued strong demand for the Corolla, Toyota said its year-to-date passenger car sales have risen 12.5 percent to 846,561 units while light truck demand has spiked 8.4 percent to 618,807 units.

Ford, meanwhile, continues to lose ground as its profit-rich truck sales lagged 16.2 percent at 1,103,520 units last month, and passenger cars are running a mere 3.5 percent ahead at 689,329 units on a year-to-date basis.

George Pipas, Ford's sales analyst, blamed the fall off in demand on a strong sales pace set a year ago when the US automaker initiated its "employee pricing for all" incentive plan.

Combine the lack of the employee pricing plan with rising gasoline prices and higher interest rates, and the climate looks pretty tough, according to analysts.

Ford's excuses seem to ignore the issue of quality. Quality may be Job 1 at Ford, but the Japanese are doing it better and people want cars that will last.