Chevrolet Best-Selling Brand for First Time in Over Five Years

In October 2016, after a 68-month gap, Chevrolet was once again the top-selling automobile brand in the United States.

Despite a modest sales slowdown, General Motors’ highest-volume brand increased its market share, outsold Ford Motor Company’s namesake Ford brand by 3,341 units, and produced the Bow-tie brand’s best October retail volume since 2004.

Ford, on the other hand, tumbled 13 percent, a loss of 26,000 sales compared with October 2015, due to sharp declines in its car and utility vehicle divisions.

It’s certainly not unusual to see perennial leader General Motors, Chevrolet’s parent company, outselling all other automobile manufacturers in the United States. Not since March 2011 has the Ford Motor Company outsold all of General Motors in the United States, and even then, only for a brief moment.

But Chevrolet has not in recent years been the major force it was even at the dawn of this century. Sharing space under the GM umbrella with Pontiac and Saturn and Oldsmobile, Chevrolet still managed to earn 16.2 percent of the overall new vehicle market in 2004.

Last year, with far fewer familial rivals, Chevrolet’s market share was four points lower.

In October 2016, however, Chevrolet increased its retail sales by 6 percent and reported a 7-percent overall increase in light truck volume. Although Chevrolet car volume plunged 14 percent to only 57,921 sales — less than one-third of the brand’s total output — total Chevrolet volume dipped just 1 percent in a market that fell 6 percent.

Moreover, October was an abbreviated sales month. With only 26 selling days on the calendar this year, October 2016 was short two days, or 7 percent, compared with October 2015. This means that on a daily selling rate basis, Chevrolet was up 7 percent.

Credit goes to the Cruze (which recorded its third consecutive monthly improvement), the Camaro (which outsold the Ford Mustang for a second consecutive month), and even the Sonic, Spark, and Volt (which collectively added more than 1,600 sales in a market that’s not favoring such cars).

On the light-truck side, the midsize Chevrolet Colorado pickup’s 50-percent leap more than counteracted the full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup’s 4-percent drop. (Total GM pickup truck sales fell 2 percent.) The Suburban and Tahoe accounted for 10 percent of Chevrolet sales, up from 6 percent a year ago. Traverse and Trax sales were on the upswing, as well.

Meanwhile, at Ford, where the Blue Oval lost its best-selling auto brand crown after a 68-month stretch on top of the podium, the automaker blamed a sharp drop in fleet sales for much of the company’s October decline. Total Ford Motor Company fleet volume fell 24 percent after the company “front-loaded” fleet volume to daily rental companies earlier in the year, drove many new F-Series Super Duty pickups to the driveways of retail customers, and suffered a huge, 62-percent recall-inflicted Transit Connect wound. Ford lost 18,163 passenger car sales, 5,661 SUV/crossover sales, and 2,215 commercial van sales compared with October 2015.

Of course, F-Series sales increased, albeit by only 42 units, year-over-year.

With Ford operating cautiously, intent on decreasing inventories as the market slows, is Toyota’s turn to top the leaderboard upcoming? Not since March 2010, when Toyota outsold Ford by more than 4,000 sales, has the Toyota brand topped the U.S. sales charts. On an annual basis, Toyota hasn’t been the top-selling auto brand in America since 2009.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.