Ford’s Gas Mustang Sales Surged 40% While Its Mach-e Collapsed 50% This Year

Detroit had hoped the worst was already priced in. It wasn’t. Ford opened 2026 with a genuinely ugly first quarter, and the April figures, freshly tallied, manage to make the picture worse. Group sales, meaning Ford and Lincoln combined, were already down 8.8 percent year over year through Q1. April brought a 14.4 percent drop, dragging the running total further into the red.

There is, against the odds, one bright spot. The Mustang, now the only passenger car Ford still sells in the United States, climbed almost 20 percent in April. Year to date, it’s up nearly 40 percent.

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Ford and Lincoln moved 178,667 vehicles in April, down 14.4 percent compared to last year, and the weakness isn’t isolated to one area. Electrified vehicles fell 31.1 percent, with EVs alone dropping 24.8 percent and hybrids down 32.5 percent. Even internal combustion models, supposedly the safe bet right now, slid 11.8 percent.

From a yearly perspective, things don’t look much different. Ford-branded vehicles are down 10.6 percent. Trucks are down 12.1 percent this year, and SUVs are down 10.9 percent. The Mustang is the only segment where Ford is seeing growth, up 39.2 percent this year with 19,904 sales through the end of April. 5,830 of those were in April itself, lifting the pony car up 18.4 percent over the same month in 2025.

Its electric namesake is having a very different year. The Mustang Mach-E fell 8.8 percent in April to 2,670 units. Year to date, the picture is far bleaker. Deliveries are down 50 percent to 7,270, against 14,535 over the same period last year.

Ford saw a few other models trend in the right direction in April as well. That includes the Bronco, up 18.6 percent, the Transit, up 22 percent, and the Explorer, up 1 percent. Heavy trucks, think E450, F550, etc, were also up 7.4 percent with 1,033 sales. Every other Ford-branded vehicle was down, most by double digits, including the Ranger by 25.1 percent, at 5,245 units.

Lincoln Sales Struggle

Lincoln, Ford’s luxury arm, didn’t fare much better. As a whole, the brand is down 7.4 percent year over year overall, but April saw a steeper fall at 21.4 percent. The Nautilus was the only model in the black, up 7.7 percent for the month. Everything else moved in the wrong direction, and most of it moved hard.

The Aviator slipped 26.5 percent. The Corsair did worse at 40.1 percent. The Navigator, Lincoln’s flagship, took the heaviest blow with 1,600 sales, a 41.7 percent collapse compared to April of 2025. For a nameplate freshly redesigned in 2025 and pitched at the heart of the luxury full-size market, that’s not a soft month. That’s a problem.