#October

More mainstream brands saw year-over-year rises in sales volume last month than those who endured a sojourn into the red. It will surprise exactly no one to learn those who did earn sales growth largely did so on the backs of trucks, SUVs, and crossovers.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at Genesis, a brand peddling some excellent cars but – for the moment – completely bereft of an offering in America’s hottest segment. Fiat Chrysler, on the other hand, had a particularly strong October thanks to its top-heaviness in each of those markets.

When Sergio Marchionne picked the day for Ferrari’s IPO, it looks like he may have ignored the lawyers.

An offering of 10 percent of Ferrari on the open market, originally scheduled for this month, has been pushed back to October.

If you’ve meant to make the trip to Utah to turn some laps around Miller Motorsports Park, you might want to do it this year. The jewel of a circuit located a short drive from Salt Lake City, built to the tune of $100 million, will close October 31st.

Over the next few weeks I will be taking you on a trip through Trans-Siberian railway, stopping along the way in various Russia, Mongolian and Chinese cities to observe the vastly different car landscapes each time. The first stop was St Petersburg in Russia, we are now off to Moscow!

Russia, Mongolia and China not your thing? That’s fine, you can check out 174 other car markets on my blog.

Back to the Trans-Siberian and Moscow. Jump in!

If you can’t wait for the next report, you can follow my trip in real time here.

Meanwhile in India, things look much better. No total sales are in yet, but market leader Maruti Suzuki posted a 39 percent gain in sales to 118,908 vehicles in October from 85,415 a year earlier, reports The Nikkei [sub]. This was the strongest October in Maruti Suzuki’s recorded history.

As expected and predicted, October new car sales in Japan were a disaster. Japan’s domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses declined 26.7 percent from a year earlier, down for the second straight month. Japan is going through a big withdrawal after the Japanese government withdrew incentives.

October sales in Japan most likely will be a nightmare. Everybody thought they would drop after the government withdrew its subsidies last month. But it will be much uglier than expected.