#December

Yesterday I ran you through the best-selling cars around the globe in November, and today we are getting one step closer to a final worldwide models ranking, with our much anticipated monthly rendezvous: the World roundup for December 2012. If last month, all spotlights were on Brazil where Hyundai broke new ground with its locally-produced HB20, in December the focus is on Chinese carmakers abroad with an event that the car industry had never seen before…You can check out previous World Roundups here for August 2012 (“The Subaru XV topples a legend in Switzerland”), September 2012 (“Ford Focus strong in China”), October 2012 (“One Japanese in the Chinese Top 50″) and November 2012 (“When Hyundai cracked Brazil”).Not interested? That’s ok, you can check out the best-selling models in 171 countries and territories on my blog. Enjoy!Back to the roundup.

What a year it’s been for Chrysler [sales release here]. With a bankruptcy and bailout on top of a aged and unloved product lineup, it’s almost a miracle the Pentastar boyz sold anything in 2009. Overall sales were down 36 percent over 2008, which saw sales 30 percent lower than 2007. But never fear Mopar fans, Chrysler swears that this downward momentum is a thing of the past, and that 2010 will see Chrysler’s first annual sales growth in years. But the question that comes to mind looking over these latest results is how? After all, only two Chrysler Group models actually sold better in 2009 than 2008. Can you guess which?