Last year was a seriously good year for carmakers. Overall, more vehicles were sold than in 2017, and the total number wasn’t far off of the all-time record in 2016. Digging deeper into the numbers, you’ll find some pretty usual stuff including the Ford F-Series still being the bestselling pickup truck in America, and a continued trend toward crossovers.
More than half of Mazda’s sales were of CX-5s
Yes, over half of all Mazda sales were of this one model. The company sold 300,325 cars in America last year, and 150,622 of them were CX-5 crossovers, or 50.1 percent. Just for emphasis, that means the other 49.8 percent of Mazda’s sales were split among five other models, the Miata, 3, 6, CX-3 and CX-9. Breaking that down further, the second-best seller was the Mazda3 at 64,638, which isn’t even half of the CX-5’s sales. People are crazy for Mazda’s middle crossover.
Volkswagen actually sold more cars than crossovers
It’s clear that the crossover is the future king of car sales. For most mainstream brands, it already is. Chevy, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and Nissan all sold more crossovers and SUVs than they did conventional sedans and hatchbacks.
Dodge’s best-selling vehicle is the Grand Caravan
We wouldn’t blame you if you straight-up forgot the Dodge Grand Caravan was still on sale, especially now that the completely redesigned Chrysler Pacifica is on the market. But Dodge still carries the van, a vehicle that has seen only mild refreshes since its introduction for the 2008 model year. Not only that, but it’s a sales smash for Dodge. The brand sold 151,927 of the vans this year, which is more than Challengers and Chargers combined, and it’s a sales increase of 21 percent over 2017.
The ancient Nissan Frontier demolished the Titan in sales
On the topic of seriously old vehicles, we come to the Nissan Frontier. Even though it’s been around since the 2005 model year, Nissan sold 79,646 of the little pickups. In the small truck market, it’s behind the Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon and Toyota Tacoma, but still not doing so bad for being so old. More impressive is that the Nissan sold nearly 30,000 more Frontiers than its full-size Titan, which was completely redesigned for the 2016 and 2017 model years.
Lexus sold 2 LFA supercars
Finally, we were impressed to see that Lexus is continuing to whittle down its LFA reserve. The brand managed to sell two more of the supercars that went out of production in 2012. By our count, there are still eight LFAs that haven’t been sold. You can read the whole explanation of the situation, here.