Ford set for better sales

..has cleared some of the storm clouds swirling around Ford Australia.

Dismal sales of the flagship Falcon and its SUV twin the Territory since the start of the year led to a backlog of more than 3000 unsold cars at Ford's Broadmeadows manufacturing facility, as well as questions about the future of the plant itself.

But the newly updated family SUV is finally gaining traction, with official industry sales figures, due later today, expected to show that Ford sold more than 1500 Territorys in June.

The Territory figure is the best in several years and well ahead of the 480 sold in May, while the Falcon sedan has also found renewed support with buyers.

Overall, the official sales figures for June are expected to show the compact Mazda3 was Australia's favourite car, with an estimated 4000 deliveries enough to trump perennial sales leader the Holden Commodore for top spot.

Mazda's June performance saw it recover much of the ground lost since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March, which disrupted supplied to many Japanese brands, including Mazda.

But total sales are still down on the same time last year as a result of softer consumer confidence.

The Ford effort will be trumpeted as a major success for the blue oval brand, which was relying on the updated Territory, with a much-needed diesel engine finally under its bonnet, to reverse the bad news since the start of the year, when sales slumped to just 1157 cars.

Since then the Falcon has only averaged around 1250 sales, less than a third of the rival Commodore and below the number needed to keep Ford Australia's Broadmeadows car making plant viable.

Company chiefs believe local sales could have bottomed in June with the Territory now on the upswing and many buyers going for high- profit top-end models, while Falcon numbers also rallied to more than 1750 cars.

With a new LPG model back on the books for Falcon next month, and a visual freshen also coming in the third quarter, the local large car is also set to benefit from Ford's announcement of capped-price servicing from the start of July.

Apart from Ford and Mazda, the showroom results for June will also show a significant improvement for Honda, which more than doubled sales of its baby Jazz model off the back of a price cut and value boost during June.