Sporty Car Sales And Premium Sporty Car Sales In Canada – July 2011

Canadians don’t buy a lot of high-end sports cars and grand tourers. C’mon, there aren’t very many of us. And cars are freakin’ expensive here, at least when contrasted with the prices south of the border. Nissan GT-R price in the United States: $89,950. Nissan GT-R price in Canada: $109,900. Got that? Canadians pay nearly $20,000 more for the same car.

Yet that doesn’t really seem to be off-putting for most potential high-end performance car buyers. The real reason for small volume in the high-end portions of this segment comes straight back to what was already mentioned; a comparatively tiny population; a much smaller market overall.

In July 2011, for example, the U.S. new car market was 7.5 times the size of the Canadian market. Yet GT-R sales were 9.3 times stronger in the U.S. Audi R8 sales were just 4.8 times greater in the U.S. And Jaguar XK sales were just 8.4 times higher in America.

Naturally, those kinds of numbers will always fluctuate. They’ll always be different depending on the model we’re discussing, too. But they do show that Canada has a fair share of the world’s exclusive sports car market.

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There are certainly machines which Americans do prefer in a disproportionate way. Chevrolet Camaro sales in the U.S. in July were 18.8 times higher than Camaro sales in Canada in the same period. The Camaro was down 28.8% in Canada last month.

Audi TT sales were only 3.3 times greater in the States. Moreover, in a manner of speaking, Canadians registered more Mazda RX-8s than Americans did in July. Well, okay, that’s not actually true. Canadian sales of the RX-8 reached 48; American sales of the RX-8 reached 65. In a market that’s 7.5 times smaller Mazda Canada found very nearly the same number of RX-8 buyers.

As for Canada’s most popular outright sporty car, one which is intended to be perceived as sporting in all forms, the Ford Mustang just isn’t that popular, not like it is in the United States. Americans acquired 6805 Mustangs in July. That figure is 11.5 times the size of Canada’s Mustang total.