Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: Nigerians Take Their Eyes Off Nollywood Movies To Buy Corollas By The Truckload

After Libya, Ivory Coast and Egypt, we are back in Africa this weekend to explore Nigeria.

The first thing you need to know about Nigeria is that it produces more films than Hollywood: around 200 movies every month! – most of them straight to video. So as an appetizer I couldn’t resist giving you a scene from ‘The Power of a Kiss’ (see above video). Notice the very posh Toyota FJ Runner and Honda Element towards the end…(the private US-to-Nigeria-car-import business is doing very well, thank you.)

Now if you don’t like waiting for hours in traffic, then Lagos, Nigeria is not for you, so I humbly suggest you explore one of 154 other countries I cover in my blog. I trust there will be one to suit your taste.

Nigeria is by far the most populous country in Africa at 155 million inhabitants but only 45,000 new cars changed hands in 2010. That’s the same amount sold in China in one day, but a slow, lazy, middle-of-the-week day, not a super-charged Saturday…

If I only had one word to summarize Nigeria it would be, wait for it, Toyota! But happily I have been allowed more than one word to describe this country. Thanks TTAC!

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Letter From The Widow Of A Deceased Nigerian Ruler In Re Daimler AG

Salutations, my good friends of the United States of America!

I am Mrs. Cammu Cori-Ganacha, the third wife of the former Nigeria head of State who died on the 8th of June, 1998. Under the strictest of confidence, I bring sad news that Automotive World are reporting that our good friends of Stuttgart, Daimler AG, are under investigation from the oppressive regime that is Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged bribes of 15 million of your U.S dollars. The alleged crimes of this upstanding and fine German company go back the 1970’s when they set up a joint with a local vehicle assembler called Anammco.

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  • Lou_BC Honda plans on investing 15 billion CAD. It appears that the Ontario government and Federal government will provide tax breaks and infrastructure upgrades to the tune of 5 billion CAD. This will cover all manufacturing including a battery plant. Honda feels they'll save 20% on production costs having it all localized and in house.As @ Analoggrotto pointed out, another brilliant TTAC press release.
  • 28-Cars-Later "Its cautious approach, which, along with Toyota’s, was criticized for being too slow, is now proving prescient"A little off topic, but where are these critics today and why aren't they being shamed? Why are their lunkheaded comments being memory holed? 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.' -Orwell, 1984
  • Tane94 A CVT is not the kiss of death but Nissan erred in putting CVTs in vehicles that should have had conventional automatics. Glad to see the Murano is FINALLY being redesigned. Nostalgia is great but please drop the Z car -- its ultra-low sales volume does not merit continued production. Redirect the $$$ into small and midsize CUVs/SUVs.
  • Analoggrotto Another brilliant press release.
  • SCE to AUX We'll see how actual production differs from capacity.