AMC USA Sales : 1970's (2nd Half)

The 1978 Concord

Years ago, I recall seeing AMC vehicles around Auckland, NZ. They weren't numerous but in a country where US brands were not selling at all, they offered something different. The other day, I noticed an AMC Javelin in the town I now live. Of course, I had Dinky cars of a Nash and Rambler models too when I was a boy.

The American Motors Corporation was founded by the merger of

Plymouth USA Sales : 1970's (2nd Half)

1977 Plymouth Volare


I recall having a couple of Plymouth Plaza taxis as dinky cars. That was all I knew of the brand. Plymouth was created in the late 1920's to give the company a low price vehicle to compete with Chevrolet and Ford. If that was the case, by the late 1970's it wasn't doing that well. It was based around the Valiant and its successor the Volare. The early 70's sales were

Mercury USA Sales : 1970's (2nd Half)

A 1977 Mercury Cougar XR-7


The brand was created in 1938 to fit above the Ford brand but below Lincoln. This followed what GM and Chrysler had already done and the Ford company felt the need to do likewise. 65,000 car were sold in 1939 which was a successful start. It became part of the Lincoln-Mercury division that was created in 1945.

By the late 70's Mercury was well established. Sales

Oldsmobile USA Sales : 1970's (2nd Half)

The Cutlass Supreme was a top selling model


I was visiting the US some years back and was kindly loaned a Cutlass Ciera by the people I was staying with. Despite that brief introduction, I know little of the Oldsmobile brand as it was exclusively a North American make. Mr Olds started making cars in 1897 and the company was purchased by GM in 1908. Over 35 million Oldsmobile cars were made

Nissan Europe's Sales Plunge

Nissan Europe's jewel in the crown, the Qashqai


The car markets of Europe are notoriously difficult to make money in. The UK is one of the more profitable, hence why car makers importing from Europe are fearful of a trade barrier. Overall it is a challenging environment that recently had GM pulling out of the region altogether and Ford is realigning its business from volume to profit driven.

Nissan Group Production : 2016-18 (Regions & Nations)

For production, there are four regions I have created to see where vehicles are made. Chinese partner Dongfeng's production is not included in the main data list but I placed it at the bottom of the chart.

Asia: It's accounts for over half of all production for the Nissan Group and China now manufactures half of that. This region will continue to contribute more volume in the future.

Nissan Group Sales : 2016-18 (Regions & Nations)

The brands under consideration here are Nissan, Infiniti, Venucia and probably Dongfeng. The latter two are Chinese brands with Venucia a subsidiary of Dongfeng and Dongfeng a 50/50 joint venture company with Nissan. Sales listed here are very close to production numbers, so if few Nissan cars are imported, then it covers all four above brands.

There are six regions below and I will briefly

Top 5 Other Segments Models UK : 2017/18

Sports: This category dropped from 1.9% to 1.6% of total sales. There was also quite a shuffling of models with only one surviving from 2017 to 2018. That was the Mazda MX-5, which became the best selling model.

SUV: They were up to 21.2%, a segment that has grown every year since 2008. Back then it was a much smaller 6.4%. The Ford Kuga knocked the Kia Sportage of the top spot and the soon

Top 5 Larger Car Models UK : 2017/18

Upper: Dropping from 9.6% to 8.1% of the market shows this segment is falling out of favour. It has been consistent for several years but 2018 saw a change in fortune. This was the 7th year the 3-Series was the best selling and the 4-Series made it a 1-2 for the brand.

Executive: This has been a consistent category in the UK regarding its share of sales. 2018 was down slightly to 4.6%.

Top 5 Smaller Car Models UK : 2017/18

Mini: Little change here, in this small segment at the bottom of the pile.

Supermini: This is the largest segment, led by the largest selling model. Again, consistent with last year.

Lower Medium: The VW Golf passed the Ford Focus for the first time, so that's something of note. The Astra dropped off altogether after decades of gracing this segment's top five. It's been replaced by the Mokka

Infiniti Euro Sales (By Model) : 2003-2019

A better car than its reception deserved. 


The premium wing of Nissan touched down in Europe for 2003. It had a battle on its hands as premium car buyers are paying that premium to get something with a reputation of quality above the mainstream car. Until a name has cachet it will sell in minuscule numbers to a few aficionados. That seems to be what has happened to Infiniti.

In 2003, there

Lancia Euro Sales (By Model) : 2000-2019

Lancia is a name historically associated with rallying, sporty and stylish cars. Despite that, they didn't sell that well outside of Italy and were taken over by Fiat in 1969. To reduce costs, Fiat based future cars on models of its own which is a common practice in the industry. Reliability and rust issues damaged their reputation and the brand has been in gradual retreat for decades.

Almost

Alfa Romeo Euro Sales (By Model) : 2000-2019

Alfa Romeo is a brand rich in history and the CEO of FCA Sergio Marchionne had drams of returning it to its former glory. Much money has been spent on achieving that. Sadly, he passed away but has it been a successful transformation? Most of the company's sales are in Europe so a critical region for AR.

Going back to the year 2000, sales were 176,000, hitting 205,000 in 2001 before settling

Jaguar i-Pace Sales 2019 (by nation - progressive)

The i-Pace is gathering pace as cars reach their customers around the world. I am unsure of the production ceiling, I have heard 20,000 pa but I'm thinking it has to be more than that. Anyway, here are some nations that are selling them and that I have data for. If anyone can add to the list, please contact me either by a comment or rdc1234@gmail.com. I would like to be a collaborative effort

The Top Two Brands In France Do Battle

Renault is the better selling brand in France and has been so earlier than I can go back. In 1980, it had 40.5% of the home market while second placed Peugeot was far away on 15.5%. Renault could not maintain such market share as competition increased and it settled into the high 20% area. More recently it came down to the 20% mark, while Peugeot was now only a few percentage points behind in

Toyota/Lexus Production By Nation : 2017-18

The data below is of production facilities around the world making Toyota and Lexus brand cars. It would have been preferable for either Lexus to be separate or Daihatsu included, but that is not how Toyota do it. The total is about 9 million units, which I have divided into five sections. We'll now look at each one.

Asia: In 2018 64% of the total was made in this region, or 5.7 million. 55%

Daihatsu Sales / Production : 2007-18

Practical vehicles are what Daihatsu do well


Daihatsu was formed in 1951 as part of a restructuring the Hatsudoki company, which itself started way back in 1907. It's headquarters are in Osaka, Japan. In 1998, Toyota took a majority stake holding and in 2016 bought the company outright.

Daihatsu made efforts to sell its cars globally, being for example the first Japanese brand to be sold in

The Times They Are A Changin'

The next few years will bring about huge change for the car industry. Some of it has already happened but it will gather pace. What are those challenges?

Re-evaluating markets:

For US brands, GM pulled out of Europe and other markets to concentrate on the Americas and China. Ford has been pulling back but to a much lesser extent, but is committed to the end of car sales and being fully reliant

Wales Passenger Car Sales : 2018

This is part of the UK but is shown separately here as there are differences to the national UK average. The top 30 data I get is for all the UK, then broken down into regions, so for example Jeep certainly isn't the 30th brand in Wales. It is though for the UK as a whole. The new arrival in the top 30 is MG.

Green highlights increased sales and yellow decrease. As the total is down 4%, there

Scotland Passenger Car Sales : 2018

This is part of the UK but is shown separately here as there are differences to the national UK average. The top 30 data I get is for all the UK, then broken down into regions, so for example smart certainly isn't the 30th brand in Scotland. It is 29th though for the UK as a whole. The new arrival in the top 30 is MG.

Green highlights increased sales and yellow decrease. As the total is down