America's 20 Best-Selling Vehicles: February 2015 YTD

After an especially strong start to 2015, Ford F-Series volume failed to increase in the United States in the second month of the year. The F-Series was outsold by GM’s full-size twins in February 2015, just as it was in the final five months of 2014. Through the first two months of 2015, however, the F-Series isn’t just America’s best-selling vehicle line, it’s also ahead of the GM twins.

Slightly.

By 327 units.

It’ll be the race to watch in 2015, not because there’s any real possibility of the F-Series being unseated – the Silverado would need to outsell the F-Series by an average of 2811 units in each of 2015’s remaining ten months to take the top spot by year’s end – but because 2015 is a major year for Ford’s truck line.

Can Ford strike the balance between incentive-boosted volume and profitability on their new aluminum-intensive F-150? If the F-Series’ market share continues to be strong, does it matter if the GM twins can muster more sales?

Ford and GM trucks aren’t alone at the top of best sellers lists: the Ram P/U line is the third best-selling vehicle range so far this year, 211 sales ahead of the best-selling car, Toyota’s Camry. The Camry’s February results, a 14% jump to 32,942 sales, meant the Ram was temporarily knocked down to the fourth position for the first time since August.

This list was updated at 11:34 AM ET to reflect former Corolla/Altima exclusion.

The Camry, meanwhile, led all cars in February. On the one hand, that’s not surprising. On an annual basis, the Camry is routinely America’s best-selling car. On the other hand, this was just the third time in the last seven months that the Camry’s topped the car leaderboard, as the Honda Accord took top honours in August and September and the Nissan Altima was the best-selling car in December and January.

The Accord, however, isn’t even the top-selling Honda these days. Honda’s CR-V continued its streak atop the Honda leaderboard in February, the fifth consecutive month in which the CR-V outsold the Accord and Civic. Through the first two months of 2015, the CR-V began just where it left off, as America’s top-selling SUV/crossover.

The odd story in February’s utility vehicle sales race was the positioning of the Ford Escape. Sales of Ford’s smallest utility declined 10% in an SUV/crossover category which grew by more than 8%. This decline opened up the door for the Toyota RAV4, Chevrolet Equinox, and Nissan Rogue to all outsell the Escape, albeit by narrow margins. The Escape, typically America’s second-best-selling SUV, ranked fifth in February and fourth through the first one-sixth of 2015.

Overall, this list of the 20 best-selling vehicles includes three pickup trucks, ten passenger cars, and seven utility vehicles, including the Ford Explorer and Jeep Cherokee. At this stage in 2014, all of these vehicles except for the Chrysler 200, Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Sentra were also among the 20 top sellers. The Hyundai Elantra, Chevrolet Malibu, and GMC Sierra – which ranked 15th, 17th, and 20th, respectively, at this stage a year ago – were knocked off.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.