Chart Of The Day: SUVs And Luxury/Premium SUV/CUVs
Wrangler went on a summer tear last month, more than doubling its July 2009 number, and leading SUVs to a strong rally. The segment’s top 18 nameplates all improved their year-over-year numbers last month, as gas prices look to hold steady through the summer (only the Suzuki Grand Vitara lost ground). SUVs should be way up again (year-on-year) this month as well, as Cash For Clunkers limited SUV sales in August 2009. Strong sales in this segment could continue into the fall on the strength of new launches like the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Ford Explorer. On the other hand, with the Explorer moving to a Crossover platform and lines between SUVs and CUVs generally blurring, it’s becoming increasingly important to compare mid/large CUVs against this SUV segment. Based on that comparison, it’s easy to see that the mass market tends to pick road-oriented people-haulers rather than offroad-oriented rock crawlers. SUVs may be booming this summer, but in the big picture they’re melting away into the ever-expanding Crossover category. Hit the jump for a bonus graph of Luxury-brand SUV/CUV sales in July.
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2011 Wrangler interior is a VAST improvement. New body color top looks good too. Now we just need the Pentastar and a diesel.
Suzuki is kicking ass with their Grand Vitara. :)