America's third-best-selling luxury vehicle in February was the Cadillac SRX, a $34,430 crossover that out-performed the combined efforts of the Audi Q5, BMW X3, and Mercedes-Benz GLK. 5502 sales equals a 55.3% year-over-year increase for the Cadillac SRX. Total year-to-date SRX sales stand at 9738, up 43.7% from the first two months of 2010. The $38,375 2011 Lexus RX350's 6567 sales represent a 14.3% increase. If, and it is an improbable if, those increases held a year from now, Cadillac would have 8545 SRX sales and Lexus only 7506 RX sales. If.Now that the second-generation $36,750 2011 BMW X3 has arrived, GLK350 4Matics and Audi Q5s have lost some of their sheen. X3 sales jumped from the first-generation's 351 in February 2010 to 1987 a year later. That's 12.1% of all BMW USA sales in February.Still, the BMW X5 was even more popular in February on falling sales. Down 10.6%, the X5 formed 16.1% of all BMW USA sales. Speaking of popularity, or the lack thereof, BMW sold only 404 X6 SAVs. That figure is down 18.2% from February 2010. Acura ZDX sales were actually up 24.5%. Lincoln sold 412 copies of the Bad 8-winning Lincoln MKT, down 36.3%.It's a big crowd, the luxury sport-ute and crossover fleet. 38,288 sales are represented in the two Graphs below - add in another 6471 once the jumbo luxo utes are included.
3633 large luxury limos were sold in America in February, excluding monsters like the Hyundai Equus, Cadillac DTS, and Lincoln Town Car. 30.5% of those 3633 sales were BMW 7-Series sedans; 70.8% of those 3633 sales were German vehicles. Lexus LS and S-Class Benz sales decreased; four of the Graph's six participating vehicles posted year-over-year increases. The Audi A8 was up 962%. Jaguar XJ sales elevated to 356 from 11 as Jaguar XF sales dropped from 586 to 262.Even less popular large luxury sport-utility vehicles like the Land Rover Range Rover were more popular than most large luxury cars. Range Rover sales jumped 13.9% to 736 in February 2011 - that's a higher total than put up by the five of six large luxury cars, yet the Range Rover was only America's fourth-ranked premium big SUV in February.As for the most popular jumbo luxo sport-ute, sales of the regular "short"-wheelbase Cadillac Escalade were down, but ESV and EXT sales bumped northward by 1.4%.
It remains difficult for Saab to convince U.S. buyers that the 2011 9-5 is a viable midsize luxury sedan option. Only 52 were sold in February. While that's up significantly from the... ahem... zero Saab sold last year, keep in mind that Saab wasn't always such a dreadfully low-volume brand: in February 2003 Saab sold 958 9-5s.Needless to say, Saab isn't the only premium brand that's barely engaged in the selling of midsize luxury cars. Down 28.5%, the Lexus GS's unpopular nature partly explains why Lexus fell behind Cadillac and Buick in overall sales in February. A 52% drop in Lincoln MKS sales doesn't see the MKS fall below the Cadillac STS or Volvo S80 or Lexus GS, but you've got to wonder about any product suffering from cut-in-half sales when the passenger car market climbs 21.8%. (Despite its otherworldly size, the 2011 Hyundai Equus is still displayed in the midsize chart. Dimensions aren't everything, and The Good Car Guy just can't see the $58,000 Equus competing with the $93,000 Mercedes-Benz S550 when the E550 starts at $57,100. Then again, price isn't everything either.)The smallerish luxury car market enjoyed quite a shakeup in February 2011. Taking over top spot was... drum roll... the Cadillac CTS. Cadillac, say whaaa? CTS sales jumped from 2690 to 6033 in February 2011, out-pacing the Infiniti G and its youthful and inexpensive new G25 iteration as well as the BMW 3-Series, normally considered unbeatable. 3-Series sales in February 2010 stood at 6817. Saab is faring slightly better with its 9-3 than the 9-5, yet even as recently as February 2004 Saab sold 2139 9-3s.If only wagons could turn the tide. The 2012 Saab 9-5 SportWagon is about as good-looking as midsize luxury cars get.
They are not rugged, not sporty, and not nearly as utilitarian as their predecessors, but that doesn't stop so-called "sport-utility vehicles" like the Honda CR-V, Ford Escape, and Chevrolet Equinox from selling rapidly and frequently. Equinox sales improved by 91.5% in February. Escape sales were up 18.8%, some way below the U.S. light truck class's 33.7% improvement. CR-V sales jumped 61.4%. These three vehicles were not only America's favourite smallerish utility vehicles in February 2011, they were also the three best-selling utility vehicles overall, followed closely by the Toyota RAV4 and Nissan Rogue on the Best Sellers chart.Don't consider that to be all-out rejection of larger SUVs and crossovers. Seven "midsize" SUVs and CUVs topped the 7000 sale mountain in February, starting with the 2011 Ford Edge and ending with the GMC Acadia. Speaking of the Acadia, GM's Lambda platform trio produced 22,279 sales in the second month of 2011 and have sold nearly 41,000 units so far in 2011. That's up 30% from GM's Lambda total in the first two months of 2010.The largest of SUV segments is another General Motors stronghold. 67.9% of large mainstream SUVs sold in February, as shown in the pie chart below, were GM vehicles. Only 16.3% of large SUVs sold weren't domestic products. The Chevrolet Tahoe led the way on gains of 52.4%.One more thing: 3.7% of all small "SUV" sales - as if these three vehicles are ess-you-vees - were Nissan Jukes, Mitsubishi Outlander Sports, and Mini Countrymans. Or is it Countrymen?
Buick's meteoric rise found the brand ranked sixteenth in the overall standings in February, ahead of Cadillac and Lexus. Much of Buick's 73.3% year-over-year increase in February came as a result of the 2011 Regal, a car which wasn't on sale in February 2010. Apart from those 3705 sales, however, the Buick LaCrosse was up 7% and the Buick Lucerne nearly doubled its 1298-unit total from February of last year. The Ford Taurus and Nissan Maxima still managed to out-sell the LaCrosse in February - Taurus sales fell 11.6%, Maxima sales grew by 17 units. Buick's ascension came as a result of booming sales achieved by four nameplates. Lexus sold nine different vehicles in February. Cadillac has three sedans and two utility vehicles with numerous iterations in between. The 2012 Buick Verano will propel Buick to even greater heights.Speaking of the fifth-generation Buick Regal, February 2011 was its best month yet. Even so, the Regal trailed its nearest GM cousin by more than 15,000 sales: the Malibu was up 26% in February. The Chevrolet Malibu, however, was behind the Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, and Toyota Camry in terms of overall volume. Pay little attention to the Volkswagen Passat's nearly nonexistent sales volume. For one thing, the Volkswagen CC still found 2329 buyers. Volkswagen is also keen on selling the 2012 Passat in considerably larger numbers.191,666 sales are manifested in the Small Car Graph below. They're not all direct competitors, of course. Nevertheless, market share stats remain relevant. 14.5% of those 191,666 sales are Toyotas; a number which climbs to 15.7% once the Scion xB and xD are accounted for. 16% of the small cars sales shown below are Hyundais or Kias. Passenger car sales rose 21.8% in February, yet sales of the Mini Cooper were off by 8.8% and Nissan Cube sales fell 20.1%.
Six sporting cars out-sold the Honda CR-Z in the United States in February 2011. One of those six cars was the recently refreshed Scion tC, sales of which were up 93% over February 2010. The CR-Z wasn't on sale a year ago, but compared to January 2011, sales were up 22%, parallel with the overall passenger car market. Sales of this broad segment's leader, the Chevrolet Camaro, were down 4% from February of last year. At the same time, Chevrolet Corvette sales rose from 624 in February 2010 to 955 a year later.Mercedes-Benz USA sold 378 high-end 2-doors in February, 22% of which were SLS AMGs. The Gullwing Benz easily out-sold the Jaguar XK and Nissan GT-R last month. Not shown in either of these Graphs are the forgotten Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class and Lexus SC, both of which found a single buyer in February. Then there's the much-loved Audi R8. Though no Porsche 911 in terms of U.S. market popularity, R8 sales are more than a little awe-inspiring for a car with a starting MSRP of $114,200. Audi R8 sales jumped 176% in February 2011 and fell in only 31 units behind the oft-ignored Audi TT, another GoodCarBadCar.net favourite.Automotive News Data Center estimates that Ferrari sold 131 cars in February; Aston Martin another 67; Rolls-Royce sold 44; Lamborghini sold 27; and Lotus 19. All those figures represent an increase, all but Aston Martin which, ANDC estimates, sold 70 vehicles in February 2010.
Chrysler's portion of the minivan market was a strong 45.4% in February 2011. The 2011 Toyota Sienna found more customers than Honda could for its Odyssey, but only just. The introduction to the marketplace of the all-new 2011 Nissan Quest brought about 832 sales for Nissan USA. The Quest's sales represented 4.1% of Nissan's overall year-over-year gains.The refreshed 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan out-sold its Chrysler platform-mate by 2651 units while also out-selling its Volkswagen platform-mate by 9845 units. Please Volkswagen, bring us the Bulli.As in the minivan market, domestics dominate the pickup truck sector. There were 130,919 trucks sold in the United States in February 2011. All but 20,920 were products of General Motors, Ford Motor Company, or Dodge. 28.7% of all pickup trucks sold in the U.S. in February were one version or another of the Ford F-Series. 34.4% of all pickup trucks sold in the U.S. in February were full-size GM products. And 83.8% of all trucks sold in the United States in February 2011 were full-size trucks: Cadillac Escalade EXT, Chevrolet Avalanche, Chevrolet Silverado, Dodge Ram, Ford F-Series, GMC Sierra, Nissan Titan, Toyota Tundra. You can see why Ford doesn't want to bother importing the next Ranger. Fewer than two of every ten trucks sold isn't a big'un; only one in five of those remaining truck sales belonged to Ford in February.
Vauxhall, with 310 Chevrolets on its side, saw its market share rise from 12.6% in January 2011 to 16% in February on the backs of five models which made it onto the list of the UK's Top 10 Best-Selling Cars list. Though the UK car market fell by 7.7% compared with the same period of 2010, Vauxhall sales jumped 23.4%. Meanwhile sales at Ford fell 23.9%. Mercedes-Benz sales rose 38.4%; Nissan sales were up 37.3%; Saab was up 90.5%; and Lotus sales improved from 18 in February of 2010 to 59 in February of 2011. Hooray.Overall then, Vauxhall was easily the best-selling car brand in the UK in February, though Volkswagen's vast conglomeration and Audi's tremendous popularity in the UK helped the VW Group's market share rise from 19.6% in January to 22.1% in February. The Volkswagen brand itself was up 6.1% to 7569 sales in February. Audi was the best-selling luxury brand and fourth-ranked brand overall on a 27.9% increase which saw sales rise to 3783. Third-ranked Ford posted sales of 7542, some 3965 ahead of fifth-ranked BMW. Honda came in at tenth position with a 23.2% jump and total sales of 2049. Hyundai and Toyota were just beind with respective sales of 2032 and 1956. Then came Renault, Skoda, Kia, Fiat, Mazda, and Mini, after which sales dropped to fewer than 900 per brand. Nissan finished the month in seventh with 2881 sales, just behind Peugeot's 3052, but just ahead of Mercedes-Benz's 2661 and Citroen's 2499.
Showing significant improvements over February 2009, the UK new car market displayed signs of restoration in February 2011 despite a 7.7% drop from February of last year. The SMMT expects an uptick in motor vehicle sales in the latter half of the 2011, but we should expect declines in year-over-year figures over the next few months. February is not the ideal month for selling cars in Great Britain - just compare the best-selling car's total this month (the Golf's 2709) with the best-selling car's total from last month (the Focus's 7582) for evidence of that fact.Most striking in the table below is the fact that half the list is made up of Vauxhalls. Two Vauxhall MPVs, the moderately size Zafira and small Meriva, hopped into the Top 10, a feat not seen since GoodCarBadCar.net began tracking UK Best Sellers. The family-sized Insignia, small Astra, and smaller Corsa built a track to the top, yet none could out-perform the interminable sixth-generation Volkswagen Golf. Ranked fifteenth in overall U.S. car volume in February, the Ford Focus isn't the force in America that it is in the United Kingdom. This could change when America's Focus is finally switched out for the updated Euro Focus that's remained a dominant force for Ford's UK success. The Ford Fiesta, last year's best-selling car in the UK, was not even among America's Top 20 Best-Selling Cars.
The vast majority of GoodCarBadCar.net readers aren't from Canada. The vast majority of Canadian GoodCarBadCar.net readers aren't from Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, in deference to the homeland, this post is all for GoodCarBadCar.net's Halifax readers, with some gossip that might interest observers from away.In the last couple years, an upheaval in the U.S. automotive industry wreaked havoc on the dealer networks of General Motors and Chrysler. This resulted in Carroll Pontiac Buick GMC Hummer closing up on the Bedford Highway and Forbes Chevrolet Cadillac permanently vacating the premises on Portland Street. McPhee, the owner of Forbes as well as its own GM dealership and Halifax Chrysler, was royally messed up. Steele Chrysler moved in to take over Bayers Lake-based Halifax Chrysler. This you know.
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America's 20 best-selling vehicles were slightly more dominant in February 2011 than in January and are ever so slightly more car-oriented, as well. 13 of the 20 most popular vehicles in February are cars. That's up from 12 in January. Still the most successful seller, the Ford F-Series' market share dropped from 4.4% in January to 3.8% in February. Still, 38 out of every thousand automobiles sold is.... impressive, to say the least. F-Series sales were up 14.1%. The best-selling utility vehicle in the USA was only the eighth best-selling vehicle overall. Honda CR-V sales jumped 61.4% in February. Only three other utility vehicles found their way onto the list of America's 20 Best-Selling Vehicles in February 2011.As for cars, there's no doubt the $19,820-$26,675 2011 Toyota Camry is helping Toyota get its groove back. 25.5% of the Toyota brand's year-over-year increase came as a result of 10,660-sale addition in Camry sales.
Falling off this month's list of America's 30 Best-Selling Luxury Vehicles are the Lexus GX460 and the Good 12-winning Porsche Cayenne. BMW's 3-Series fell from second to fifth on a 28.5% year-over-year drop and a 15.5% drop from January 2011. BMW was the most popular luxury brand in the United States in February, helped by a strong 5-Series performance (ranked 7th below, up 86.6% from February 2010) and the BMW X3, up 466.1% now that the appealing second-generation SAV is available.All these stories seem small when contrasted with Cadillac's strong performance. The CTS posted a 124.3% sales increase and came within spitting distance of being crowned America's most popular luxury vehicle in February. Right behind the Good 12-winning CTS was the Cadillac SRX and its 55.3% jump. Back in 16th and 24th you'll find Cadillacs. One can imagine how strong Cadillac would be if the STS was a viable 5-Series/E-Class alternative: STS sales were up 56.3%, but that only indicates a 187-unit climb to 519 measly sales. (Cadillac failed to sell a single STS in Canada in February.)Of course, Cadillac's terrific performance in February was perhaps overshadowed just a little by Buick. The Good Car Guy doesn't include Buick as a premium nameplate eligible for this table, but Cars.com's Kicking Tires blog (for whom The Good Car Guy contributed this week) looked at Buick's February beating of Lexus in some detail.
