First, it was the Philippines, and now...
The all-new fourteenth-generation Ford F-150 will be in dealerships across the US very soon. Without question, it will once again be the segment's benchmark. Chevy and Ram, meanwhile, will continue to duke it out for second place sales. But there is another truck market outside of the US where all three vehicles are popular. However, the 2021 F-150 won't be arriving there for quite some time.
That market/country is Australia. According to WhichCar, the latest F-150 still does not have an expected arrival date, but what's even more troubling for those customers is the wait time for the outgoing model. You see, unlike GM and Ram, Ford has not contracted a third party to convert its trucks to right-hand-drive.
The good news is that there are some companies that do this in an unofficial capacity, though it does create an additional ordering process step. The bad news is that F-150 stock is currently very low in Australia. "We had a lot of stock early in the year, and by mid-year, we were sold out," said Kevin Thoroughgood, a dealer principal for Performax. "We've got stuff coming all the time, our factory is busy, and our dealer has got orders, but everything is sold. All seven of our dealers have already sold out everything that we have coming to Australia."
Basically, F-150 demand in North America has been so high in recent months - specifically for the outgoing model - there's not little to no inventory elsewhere. Like the Philippines, which only last summer amazingly began to receive the thirteenth-gen F-150, Australians are stuck with the old model for now.
Buyers still determined to get an F-150 have three current options, according to Thoroughgood: "You can get one off the showroom floor if we have something in stock - which in a normal world we would have, this year is an exception. The second way is you can buy out of inbound stock that we have already got coming that suits. The third way is to do a factory order, which means we order exactly what you want from the Ford factory through a dealer in Canada and wait until it gets built."
Opting for the third way means a waiting time of 9-12 months, at best. Also, the F-150 is anything but cheap in this market. An F-150 can range from $99,000 to $250,000 AUD. A Raptor? $190k AUD.
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