June 2012 Sales: What the Headlines Don’t Tell You

More than eight of every hundred Americans is unemployed or has given up looking for work, and June was yet another record-breaking month for auto sales. Economists and pundits have advanced a number of theories—fuel prices are low, Americans are willing to go in to personal debt, subprime loans have returned, aliens are buying BMW 328is in bulk—but there isn't a simple, single explanation. The bottom line is that it's good news for automakers, which can use profits from U.S. sales to offset the despondent European market. At the halfway mark for 2012, we stop and look back on the past six months at overall sales, check out what's happening at Bentley—which trumpeted a year-on-year gain globally of more than 30 percent—and have a look at the enthusiast models from Jeep and Scion. The Big Picture Sales of the Ford F-series in the first six months of 2012: 301,141 Sales of the Toyota Camry during this period: 213,903 Of the Chevy Silverado: 194,508 Of the Honda Civic: 162,582 Of the Nissan Altima: 157,101 Of the Honda Accord: 155,178 Of the Toyota Corolla/Matrix: 151,726 Of the Honda CR-V: 146,682 Of the Chevy Malibu: 141,437 Of the Ram 1500/2500/3500: 138,581 What the numbers reveal: Say what you will for the quality, the driving pleasure, the looks, and efficiency of modern cars from the Detroit Three; sales still are hugely driven by trucks and crossovers. This isn't a point for blame—at least in the cases of Ford and GM—they're delivering the vehicles that customers want, and have diverse product portfolios. If you look closely (click on the image for a bigger version) you can see how desperately Chrysler needs a proper small crossover to compete with the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V, and how urgently the Dart is needed in showrooms. How to Print Money, By Bentley Total number of Bentleys sold worldwide in the first six months of 2012: 3929 Price in the U.S. for the Bentley Continental GT V-8, the least-expensive model: $176,725 Minimum global gross for Bentley car sales during the first six months of 2012: $694,352,525 Total U.S.-market gross for the new movie The Avengers through July 5, 2012: $608,959,760 Number of "expressions of interest" Bentley claims it has received for its EXP 9 F concept: 2000 What the numbers reveal: The U.S. edged past China as Bentley's largest market during the first half of this year. We can rail on Bentley for selling out (literally and figuratively), or for building glorified Audis, or even for experimenting with baroque design language. So what? The cars sell in huge numbers and they're very profitable. A Halo Car, But Better Sales of the Jeep Wrangler in the first six months of 2012: 70,871 Percent increase this represents over the first six months of last year: 33 Number of months in 2012 when the Wrangler was one of Chrysler's three top-selling products: 3 Rank of the Wrangler among Chrysler products for cumulative sales in the first six months of 2012: 3 Rank of the Grand Cherokee: 2 What the numbers reveal: Typically, a pure vehicle like the Wrangler is a halo product for a carmaker. Sales might be small and appeal to a niche, but the image gives cred to the mainstream cars in the same showroom. Not true for Jeep. The Wrangler is a sales monster, and beats the Patriot, Compass, and Liberty in the charts. Just Add Rear-Wheel Drive Sales of the new, rear-drive Scion FR-S in the first six months of 2012: 2770 Sales of the Subaru BRZ in the first six months of 2012: 1089 Month during which those cars arrived at dealers: May Sales of the Mazda MX-5 Miata in the first six months of 2012: 3426 Number of rear-wheel-drive cars sold in the U.S. priced starting under $30,000: 10 What the numbers reveal: The impact of front-wheel drive becoming the norm for mainstream cars is that it's seriously expensive to develop a niche rear-drive platform—and to sell it at a low price. Scion and Subaru are the newest entries to the space, and we're expecting sales to be strong this year and next, followed by a big decline. Toyota knows this drop is coming, too, and will spin off more cars from this platform. As for the rest of the bunch, Mazda's MX-5 Miata is a permanent fixture. So is the Ford Mustang. The Hyundai Genesis coupe and Dodge Challenger? We'll see. from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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