Pickup Progress

Compact pickups are coming into fashion in France, led by the Japanese brands. The segment is small — it will be about 10,000 units in a market of 2 million this year — but pickup sales are growing while overall new vehicle sales are down 7%.

The segment is so small the French auto makers' organization CCFA lumps registrations in with 4-wheel-drive SUVs. That combined category grew 13.6% through the first eight months, to 7,877 units.

Interviews with executives at France's Lyon auto show established the size of the segment at 10,000 units this year, although market leaders Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Toyota Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. pegged it at 7,000-8,000 units.

All offer single cabs (except Ford Motor Co.'s Ranger), extended cabs and 4-door double cabs, all powered by diesel engines. Prices range from E15,000 ($17,456) for a 2-wheel-drive Mazda B-2500 to E30,000 ($34,911) for an upscale double cab Ranger with 4WD. At Lyon, all the auto makers showed loaded versions priced at the high end, as those are the pickups boosting the market.

Ford, which is the pickup king in the U.S., plans to sell just 390 units this year in France, says a spokesman, but sales are growing.

About half of Ford's French sales are in overseas French colonies, which don't show up in the CCFA's registration figures. Mazda Motor Corp., which offers its version of the same pickup, will sell about 300 units this year.

Nissan is the apparent market leader in France, selling 3,800 units this year. Toyota says it will sell about 3,500 units this year of its HiLux compact pickup.

There is a certain irony in the fact that American pickups have only 4% of the French pickup market. “The fashion in the U.S. has an effect here,” says Mitsubishi France President Ferdinand Fellner. But he credits the dominance of the Japanese brands on having the right configurations.