F Ford Motor Company

By Mike Spector, Christina Rogers and Gautham Nagesh 

Facing slowing sales of its Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck and other models, General Motors Co. launched a broadside against Ford Motor Co. that questions the durability of its crosstown rival's most profitable vehicle.

In a marketing blitz on Wednesday, Chevrolet said lab tests and other demonstrations show the Silverado's high-strength steel bed better withstands damage than the stamped aluminum bed in Ford's F-150 pickup truck.

GM ads show loaders dumping concrete blocks in both beds, punching holes in the F-150's bed while only scratching and denting the high-strength steel bed of the Silverado. The demonstrations were done without bed liners protecting the trucks.

"When you're the market leader for 39 years, competitors sometimes try to take shots at you with marketing stunts," a Ford spokesman said. He added that the F-150's "high-strength, military grade, aluminum alloy cargo box" provides leading strength, durability and corrosion resistance, among other benefits.

The marketing offensive, rolling out in print and television ads, marked a significant escalation in the perennial truck battle among Detroit's auto makers.

Ford's F-series trucks are the U.S.'s best-sellers, with more than 750,000 delivered annually in recent years.

Sales of F-series trucks this year are up more than 7% through May, outpacing flat Silverado sales.

GM said it fares well in direct retail sales to consumers.

GM and Ford often take aim at one another.

But the Chevrolet campaign ratcheted up the rhetoric ahead of the crucial summer selling months, unequivocally taking shots at the F-150's strength and quality in lab tests and demonstrations in front of prospective truck buyers.

"It's an all-out war," said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at research firm AutoPacific Inc. "There is nothing that appears to be off-limits now."

Whether consumers will respond remains to be seen. Car shoppers often home in on assessments from Kelley Blue Book and other third-party researchers rather than advertisements when making buying decisions.

GM officials said they didn't have third-party research showing that the steel bed is more durable than aluminum, but pointed to other testing showing aluminum is more costly to fix.

Ford rolled out F-150 trucks with aluminum at the end of 2014, attracted by the lighter metal's ability to, among other things, improve fuel economy and handling.

The Silverado uses aluminum in some truck parts, but not the bed. GM executives on Wednesday insisted the Silverado's bed is superior for hauling tools and other materials.

GM's salvo comes amid significant market-share declines as the popularity of high-margin pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles surges, spurred by cheap gasoline and low interest rates.

The company's share of the U.S. new-vehicle market in May dropped to 15.7% from 17.9% a year earlier.

The campaign also comes just months before Ford launches an aluminum F-250, a heavy-duty version of the profitable F-series truck.

GM has recently ceded ground to Ford in the competitive race for commercial and government fleet sales.

GM attributes some of its market-share losses to a deliberate pullback in less profitable rental-car sales. But the result is a fierce battle that encompasses pickup trucks and SUVs.

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Tuesday before the company's annual shareholders meeting that the auto maker remains focused on profitable retail sales and reducing rental deliveries regardless of the effect on market share.

She said the strategy would better position GM for a potential economic downturn. But doing so could curb GM's revenue and profit in the short term. Investors, meanwhile, are cool to GM's stock despite record profit and sales, with shares trading below the auto maker's 2010 initial public offering price of $33.

Investors are concerned that car sales, which reached a record 17.5 million in 2015, have peaked, and fears over the timing and severity of another downturn have become commonplace.

Mr. Sullivan, the AutoPacific analyst, said the GM truck demonstrations weren't overly illuminating.

"It's just one of the characteristics of aluminum," he said of the F-150 damage GM demonstrated. "Having a bed liner is a must."

GM said it dropped 55 landscaping blocks weighing a total of 825 pounds into the beds of both trucks from 5 feet above the bed floor. It also pushed a steel toolbox off the side rail of each truck, to test if the toolbox dented the floor of the beds.

GM still sells the most pickup trucks in the industry, in large part thanks to its decision to re-enter the midsize truck market.

GM also benefits from offering two full-size pickups: the Silverado and the GMC Sierra, which combined accounted for 39% of the retail truck market in the first quarter of 2016, compared with 32.3% for Ford, according to R.L. Polk & Co. registration data. The Silverado's share during the same period was 27.3%.

Chevrolet truck marketing chief Monte Doran said the marketing campaign wasn't meant to attack Ford, but rather highlight the Silverado's advantages.

A GM spokesman said engineers discovered the testing differences months ago, and the results were replicated for the ad campaign.

He added the campaign aims to lure shoppers away from Dodge and Toyota Motor Corp. rather than try to persuade loyal, entrenched Ford truck owners.

Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com, Christina Rogers at christina.rogers@wsj.com and Gautham Nagesh at gautham.nagesh@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 09, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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