America's Fastest Cars – Fastest Off The Lot, Vrooooom ...

This list, compiled by Edmunds.com shows America’s 50 hottest and fastest cars. They are so fast that dealers can’t keep them on the lot. Off the truck, out of the door.

Says Michelle Krebs of Edmunds:

”The Prius C, the newest, smallest and least expensive member of the Toyota Prius hybrid family, barely has time to get its tires dirty because the Prius C, with a starting price of about $19,000, stays on the dealership lot only about eight days until a buyer drives it away. By comparison, the average vehicle across the U.S. industry sat on a dealership’s lot an average of 53 days in March, according to Edmunds.com’s metric referred to as days-to-turn — the number of days between a vehicle being delivered to a dealership to it being purchased by a customer.”

America’s Fastest Selling Cars

The velocity of inventory is measured in DTT – Days To Turn. Inventories are a closely watched metric in the industry, and you should watch it too. Fast moving inventory can mean that the car is in high demand, in short supply, or both. It also tells you that your bargaining power is low – there is a customer right behind you. Cars that stick around much longer than the industry-standard two months attract incentives to move the metal. Those incentives may not be as generous as they used to be. Michelle Krebs explains:

“Since the recession and the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, automakers have been much more disciplined about keeping production in line with customer demand. The industry’s average days-to-turn has been in 47 and 57 days since January 2010. If inventories begin to bloat, the manufacturer shuts down the factory until the marketplace sops up the inventory, as is the current case with GM’s extended-range plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt.

Stricter production discipline allows automakers to show restraint on incentives, which are at their lowest levels since 2008, according to Edmunds.com’s Total Cost of Incentives (TCI) calculations. That’s bad news for consumers because low inventories and quick turn of vehicles equals little — if any — discounts and haggling room on the showroom floor for hot sellers.”

Brand new models tend to enter the list of hot sellers like shooting stars: Oooh, aaaah, burnout. Factories slowly and cautiously ramp up production to ensure there are no glitches. At the same time, certain consumers absolutely must have the latest, greatest vehicle on the market. According to Ms Krebs, shooting star candidates are the Lexus GS 350 sedan, Mazda CX-5 SUV, Porsche Cayenne SUV, the Subaru Impreza sedan and the Honda CR-V. Then there are the regulars of the list. Says Krebs:

“Some companies and certain of their models make the quickest-selling vehicles just about every month, indicating the strength of the brand and the product as well as the automaker’s capacity constraint. Two notable ones are Audi and Hyundai.”

Edmunds lists the 20 fastest-selling cars on its website. We asked Edmunds to give us the whole list, fast sellers and lot queens. We received a list of the top 50, but not more, due to “low sample sizes.” Mind you, the #50 on this list is still in an enviable position with a little less than double the industry-standard 2 month inventory velocity.