Midsize Pickup Trucks Jump 29% In July 2016 As Full-Size Pickup Sales Level Off

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

Midsize pickup truck sales shot up 29 percent in the United States in July 2016, enough to drive the sub-sector’s share of the overall pickup category up three points to 17 percent.

Indeed, without the gains produced by the midsize truck sector, overall U.S. pickup truck volume would have flatlined in July on declining sales of the two top-selling truck lines, Ford’s F-Series and the Chevrolet Silverado. Moreover, without the midsize truck sector’s additional 8,973 July sales, total U.S. new vehicle sales volume would have risen by less than one-tenth of one percent.

Instead, because of a dramatic increase in sales of the second-generation Honda Ridgeline in its first month of availability, another huge uptick in Nissan Frontier sales, and continued growth from GM’s Colorado/Canyon duo, pickup truck sales grew four percent and the American auto industry reported nearly 10,000 extra sales in July 2016, year-over-year.

In June, Honda reported the best month of Ridgeline sales in America since August 2008. Still suffering from limited availability in July, Ridgeline volume nevertheless grew 42 percent (compared with June; 58,533 percent compared with July 2015) to 3,518 units, the best month of Ridgeline sales since April 2008.

The Ridgeline’s July 2016 total was only 14 units shy of the GMC Canyon’s total in the second-generation Canyon’s best month since the nameplate returned in the fourth-quarter of 2014. For the Canyon’s Chevrolet Colorado twin, July marked the fifth consecutive month with more than 9,000 sales. GM is on track to sell approximately 140,000 midsize pickups in the United States in 2016.

Nissan, which is on track for its best year of Frontier sales since 2001, reported 7,244 sales of its midsize pickup truck in July, a sharp 3,050-unit year-over-year improvement.

Toyota, despite a three percent year-over-year downturn, still earned top honors in the category and claimed 41 percent market share.

Through the first seven months of 2016, total U.S. midsize pickup volume is up 19 percent, with the Toyota claiming 44 percent of the 251,178 sales produced by five nameplates.

Midsize pickups are back. Mostly. Sort of.

Rewind to the first seven months of 2006, and with a bundle of other contenders, Americans had acquired 368,000 small/midsize pickups, a 13-percent year-over-year drop. The Toyota Tacoma, with fewer sales in that seven-month stretch than this year, owned 28 percent of the segment.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.

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  • Lou_BC Lou_BC on Aug 08, 2016

    I'd love to see an aluminum Ranger for the USA......... If for no other reason than to watch someone's head explode.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Aug 08, 2016

    You might get your wish, but I think that the Ranger will start out similar to the Global Ranger and if not eventually all aluminum it could use aluminum, plastics, and carbon fiber along with light weight high tensile steel. Most vehicles will be subject to the higher fuel standards which means reducing weight. A Global Ranger would be a good addition to the North American market. Lou, I don't know if you have it in Canada, but there is a new series on TV for the Summer called Brain Dead where bugs from outer space crawl up in people's ears and destroy their brains. Eventually the infected have their heads explode. It takes place in Washington DC and it is a satire. Makes you wonder if something like that is in the brains of many of our politicians. Maybe Donald Trump's brain has been infected with these bugs.

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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