#Cain'sSegments

These are not normal times for America’s pickup truck market.

The best-selling pickup truck line, Ford’s F-Series, is now entering a transition phase many months after potential customers first witnessed its aluminum-intensive replacement.

Toyota, long a minor player in the full-size category, refreshed its Tundra and continues to achieve notable sales increases, though with gradually less impressive growth figures.

GM’s twins last combined to outsell the Ford F-Series in 2009. They should still seem fresh, but to many the redesign wasn’t, in visual terms, sufficiently differentiated from the GMT900 models. Through the first seven months of 2014, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trail the Ford F-Series by 35,610 units.

Booming utility vehicle sales have boosted Canada’s new vehicle market to unseen highs in the first half of 2014. Despite falling car sales and a slight decline in overall pickup truck volume, Canada’s auto industry is up nearly 3% through the first six months of 2014, an increase of some 25,000 units compared with the first half of 2013.

Small and midsize pickup trucks accounted for 10.6% of the new pickups sold in the United States in June 2014 as their collective volume slid 9.3%.

Overall pickup truck sales slid 5.1%. Sales of the core set of six full-size trucks fell 3.5%.

One year ago, in June 2013, this group of non-full-size trucks generated 11.1% of the pickup truck volume.

The only van not capable of improving its May 2013 U.S. sales figures in May 2014 possessed an in-showroom rival last month which didn’t exist a year ago. Ram Cargo Van sales fell 21%, or 209 units, in May 2014. But with the ProMaster making headway, total Ram commercial van sales jumped 84%.

Ford is in a transition phase: readying the new 2015 F-150 while trying to sell the old model as often as possible. This requires knowing just how many F-Series pickups dealers will need in the weeks leading up to the new model’s introduction.

AutoApril2014April2013%Change4 mos.20144 mos.2013%ChangeBMW X54,3933,444+27.6%14,15315,335-7.7%BMW X33,5441,914+85.2%13,9749,125+53.1%Mercedes-Benz M-Class3,8313,280+16.8%13,96512,442+12.2%Audi Q53,2933,241+1.6%12,06711,437+5.5%Mercedes-Benz GLK-Class3,1442,702+16.4%11,41510,212+11.8%BMW X11,1301,556-27.4%9,0986,967+30.6%Volkswagen Tiguan1,9982,488-19.7%8,10910,439-22.3%Mercedes-Benz GL-Class2,2532,481-9.2%7,67110,099-24.0%Porsche Cayenne1,8391,750+5.1%6,1195,931+3.2%Audi Q71,4621,183+23.6%5,5514,084+35.9%Volkswagen Touareg597578+3.3%2,1623,102-30.3%BMW X6342354-3.4%1,4421,618-10.9%Mercedes-Benz G-Class274188+45.7%882800+10.3%—— —————Total28,100 25,159 +11.7% 106,608 101,591 +4.9%

It’s not as though consumers hadn’t experienced doses of luxury in their SUVs before the Mercedes-Benz ML, Lexus RX, and Lincoln Navigator began pushing an increasingly impressive wave toward shore in the late 90s. But, especially in the enthusiast community, there was some reluctance to accept the notion of such illustrious brands diving head first into a market that was going to demand perfectly balanced compromises. The traditional off-road ability we associated with SUVs couldn’t be thrust overboard in favour of road manners. Or could it?

The general belief that no genuine Jeep Wrangler alternative sells in anything like the kinds of numbers achieved by the Wrangler is a belief that is completely, wholeheartedly supported by the facts.

Compact cars, many of which are now as roomy as older midsize cars, collectively sold at a significantly better rate in the first half of 2013 than in the first half of 2012.

It may have proven to be a bit of a disappointment thus far, but 35,764 of the extra 87,149 compact sales have come from the Dodge Dart. Exclude small Dodges from the equation and compact sales in America are up 4.8% this year. America’s auto industry has produced a 7.5% improvement.

In the first six months of 2013, the volume achieved by America’s auto industry was 5% smaller than it was in the first six months of 2003. This is an important statistic, one which goes a long way in understanding how America’s appetite for the smallest German roadsters (and hardtops, and hardtop roadsters) has dwindled.

June hosted a dramatic decline in the U.S. sales of traditional full-size sport-utility vehicles but also marked the end of a successful first half in which sales of these seven SUVs rose 7.9%.

That sound you’ve been hearing for nearly two decades is the weeping and gnashing of teeth roused by the Chevrolet Beretta’s demise. Oh, Ford Probe, we hardly knew ye. Whither the Dodge Daytona? Let’s look at the continuing decline of an empire, formerly ruled by the American Muscle Car.

The eleven vehicles most obviously classified as subcompacts accounted for 3.8% of the American automobile industry’s May 2013 sales volume, down from 3.9% a year ago. Overall volume increased, but not at the rate of the overall market, and certainly not at the rate achieved by their opposite, pickup trucks. Let’s have a little look at the small cars.

U.S. sales of pickup trucks rose 19% in May 2013 despite the disappearance of 6175 Ford Rangers, Dodge Dakotas, Suzuki Equators, Chevrolet Colorados, and GMC Canyons.

So strong were sales of the remaining trucks that these deficits weren’t simply accounted for, they were overcome to the tune of 32,144 extra sales. Overall, the auto industry reported 108,594 more sales this May than last, according to Automotive News. That works out to an 8% improvement. More than a hundred passenger car nameplates combined to generate about 36,000 more sales in May 2013 than in May 2012.