If the measurement of a successful automaker’s year-over-year sales stats can’t start with a plus sign, you know it’s been a bad month. Early this year, the brother and father-in-law of The Good Car Guy spent extensive amounts of time in Labrador, the most northern part of Newfoundland & Labrador, in Canada’s north. It was winter; it was cold; it was stormy.
Most curiously of all, the cold was so easily assumed that the obligatory ‘minus’ statement that comes before most Canadians state the temperature in Celsius is, actually, not obligatory at all. One can rest assured that the temperature will not rise above 0 degrees, the freezing mark, so Labradorians reduce unnecessary conversations by simply stating, “Nine”, or “Fourteen”. Everybody knows they mean “below zero”.
Likewise, in automotive sales for September 2008. Not a single manufacturer was able to produce better sales this September than they did in September of 2007. Therefore, GoodCarBadCar.net will be skipping the negative sign and simply stating the percentage drop. You can all assume the story’s bad – your assumptions will be correct.
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Chevrolet: 11.2% to 172,803
Toyota: 31.8% to 128,215
Ford: 33.8% to 102,685
Honda: 23.2% to 86,629
Dodge: 25.2% to 62,572
Nissan: 38.4% to 51,786
GMC: 12.8% to 39,029
Hyundai: 25.4% to 24,765
Chrysler: 25.2% to 23,346
Pontiac: 26.7% to 23,324
Jeep: 42.8% to 21,431
Mercedes-Benz: 16.4% to 18,779
Saturn: 10.8% to 18,528
Kia: 27.8% to 17,382
Volkswagen: 9.4% to 17,109
Mazda: 35.6% to 16,169
Lexus: 36.1% to 16,045
BMW: 29.5% to 14,744
Subaru: 11.9% to 14,491
Buick: 20.5% to 14,121
Cadillac: 39.1% to 12,432
Acura: 30.4% to 9,997
Infiniti: 24.1% to 7,779
Audi: 5.4% to 7,584
Lincoln: 22.5% to 7,571
Mitsubishi: 39% to 7,378
Mercury: 43.2% to 6,478
Suzuki: 44% to 4,081
Volvo: 51.8% to 4,054
Mini: 6.7% to 3,762
Hummer: 54.8% to 2,298
Saab: 27.2% to 1,765
Porsche: 44.8% to 1,458
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Note the absence of Jaguar and Land Rover. New owners Tata have decided not to share their American sales figures, although you will be able to see the stats for Canada’s auto sales coming up.
