AMERICAN AUTO SALES FOR SEPTEMBER 2008

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.