The Beyond Branding Blog

January 05, 2006

America’s top 10 cars: Japanese take top ﬁve

As a footnote to my previous post, even though blogging means this will wind up above it, 2005’s top-selling cars in the United States have been announced.
I am old enough to remember an Oldsmobile Cutlass being in the global top 10. Or the Ford Taurus trumping everything else in the States. Now, the boardrooms in Japan are applauding:

1. Toyota Camry (431,703 units sold)
2. Honda Accord (369,293)
3. Toyota Corolla/Matrix (341,290)
4. Honda Civic (308,415)
5. Nissan Altima (255,371)
6. Chevrolet Impala (246,481)
7. Chevrolet Cobalt (212,667)
8. Ford Taurus (196,919)
9. Ford Focus (184,825)
10. Ford Mustang (160,975)

Unless the American automakers sort out their brands, they had better get used to these sorts of sales’ results’ tables. This table, too, shows that the better deﬁned the brand (at least Stateside), the better the sales.

posted by Jack Yan, 9:54 AM permalink

Comments:

One thing worthy of note: the American cars are not sold globally, not even the Focus (which is a newer model in many parts of the world). The Chevy Cobalt may be on a global platform, but is Chevrolet designing a car for the world? Reports I have is that it is not—while the Japanese haved upped their quality on every respect to make these cars sell everywhere. Brands can drive engineering excellence, but it is rather poorly deﬁned at Ford, and only gradually improving at Chevrolet.

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