DEARBORN, Michigan — Ford Motor Company has decided to move ahead to November its marketing launch of the new F-150 pickup truck, which had been planned for December. It means that the launch now has taken one step forward after taking two steps back, over the summer, when Ford delayed the launch by two months because of the stunning decline in industry pickup sales after the spike in gasoline prices.'The sell-down of old models has progressed faster than we thought,' Jim Farley, Ford's executive vice president of marketing and communications, told reporters and securities analysts in a conference call yesterday. And early units of the new F-150 are 'on their way to Ford dealers already,' Farley said.Farley also indicated that Ford 'will be building more F-150s' than it lately has planned, though he didn't provide details.Ford's latest adjustment of the timing for its F-150 launch reflects at least three factors.First, as gasoline prices have receded closer to an average of $3.50 a gallon from the spike of more than $4 a gallon in July, pickup-truck sales have recovered somewhat as a segment. Second, Chrysler never adjusted the timetable for launching its new Dodge Ram, which is occurring now, and Ford doesn't see any reason now to allow Ram to hog the stage for another two months.Third, Ford has what Farley called 'plans to launch 10 new vehicles in essentially nine months,' through the summer of 2009, as well as an 'assault on the small-vehicle market in 2010' — and wants to get on with it.Clearly, however, the target customer for the new F-150 has narrowed dramatically from those who've been buying pickup trucks for the last several years.Both Ford and Chrysler executives have acknowledged that the 'lifestyle buyer' who really doesn't need the payload and towing capacity of pickup trucks, but just likes how they look and feel, has evaporated. At the same time, those with vocational and heavy-hobby needs and desires for a pickup truck remain eager customers.'People buying trucks today are different than six months ago,' Farley said. 'Today's truck customer is in the center of the Built Ford Tough bullseye.'Doug Scott, Ford's truck marketing manager, said that 'the core truck buyer is a fleet or commercial user, as well as an occupational or mixed-use contractor, who's using the truck during the week for his business needs and on the weekend for personal use.'Ford plans to appeal to the core market by touting the superlatives of the F-150 including payload, towing capacity and, in a new Superior Fuel Economy (SFE) version, its mileage performance.What this means to you: Competition for truck buyers will be more vigorous this fall, but the appearance of a new F-150 and new Ram means that overall incentives might not be as generous as they have been so far this year — Dale Buss, Correspondent