When Ford announced its plans to eliminate all of its traditional cars from its American lineup with the sole exception of the Mustang, people were shocked, to say the least. It was a gutsy move, too. Established nameplates like Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus were soon to be wiped out completely. Ford realized it would be best to focus on what it does best: trucks, SUVs, and Mustangs. The loss of those traditional cars also allows Ford to free up needed funds to develop the next generation of vehicles, specifically EVs and autonomous tech.

However, Ford is already proving the naysayers wrong. It made the right call (at least so far). The automaker has just released its second quarter 2019 US sales figures and the results are telling: the strongest total pickup truck sales in 15 years.

This was marked by an increase of 7%, beating Q1's growth of 5%. In addition, Expedition sales are up by 50% while the F-650 and F-750 had the best sales in over 20 years. Breaking this all down further, truck and SUV sales totaled 83% of Q2 sales, which is 4 percentage points higher than last year. The average transaction price also increased by $1,500 to $36,400 per vehicle. F Series trucks, in general, passed the 230,000-unit mark, with an average transaction price of $47,500 per truck. That's actually $1,200 higher than just one year ago at this time. It's also $2,500 above the segment average. Impressive. As for the Ranger, a total of 20,880 units were sold in Q2 – more than doubling first-quarter sales.

The all-new Explorer, however, just went on sale so we won't have data for another three months, at the earliest. As for Lincoln, the all-new Nautilus proved popular with a total of 8,187 units sold in Q2, with an average price tag of $3,700 more than its MKX predecessor at this time last year. Average price per Nautilus: $44,300.

In general, Lincoln SUV sales achieved an 18-year high sales number with 39,109 sold in the first six months of this year. Now that the new Aviator is on sale, soon to be joined by the Corsair, expect this figure to increase later this year. The Mustang also continues to sell extremely well.

Sales of the high-performance variants alone, the GT350 and Bullitt, were up by 39 percent in Q2. This alone helped boost the average Mustang transaction price to $36,300 per car, a $1,200 increase over a year ago. Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus? All will soon be in the past.