Chicago Car and Truck Sales Vary from Nation

According to the Chicago Auto Outlook (Auto Outlook Inc.), the 10 top-selling vehicles in the Chicago area through June of 2005 were the Toyota Camry (5,540), Honda Accord (4,280), Toyota Corolla (4,188),Chevrolet Cobalt (3,738), Ford F-Series (3,696), Honda Odyssey (3,482), Honda Civic (3,458), Nissan Altima  (3,404), Dodge Caravan (3,100),  and Chevrolet Equinox (2,756). Chevrolet still remains the number one brand in the Chicago area, as well as nationwide. Ford remains number two across the country, but takes the number three spot in Chicago sales.

Auto Outlook sales data covers retail registrations for the eight-county area in northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana. The data does not include sales to daily rental companies, commercial or government fleet cars. Historically, fleet sales have been composed of domestic brands.

Traditionally, Chicago and the Midwest was a strong seller of domestic brands. In 1995, domestic brands held 75 percent of Chicago-area retail sales, as compared to 48 percent in 2005. Varying from sales across the nation, Chicago sells more passenger cars, a large number of them imports. Passenger cars accounted for 52.4 percent of new vehicle sales in the Chicago area in 2005. Car sales increased nationally about 46 percent in the same period, while light trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans, captured more than half of the U.S. market since 2001.

For the last 24 years the best-selling car or truck nationwide has been the Ford F-Series pickup, yet in the Chicago area it ranked fifth among retail buyers in 2005. The Toyota Tacoma took the top spot for the most popular midsize pickup nationwide, yet ranked number four locally behind Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger and Dodge Dakota. In full-size pickups, domestic brands held the top five spots, both locally and across the U.S.

Statistics demonstrate that Chicago buyers prefer domestic trucks, however, says Jeffrey Foltz, editor of the Chicago Auto Outlook, "the trend of switching to imports is eventually going to catch up on the truck side."

 Despite General Motors' ailing sales figures, a comparison of U.S. sales of domestically made cars in 2005 put GM vehicles at the top of the list; perhaps due to its very numbers, producing more models than any other manufacturer. The numbers looked like this in 2005: GM (1,669,079), Ford (934,832), Toyota (828,987), Honda (692,309), Chrysler (680,533), Nissan (450,285), VW (136,471), Subaru (94,027), Mazda (71,449), Mitsubishi (58,463), Hyundai (34,000), BMW (10,045), and Suzuki (0).

Asian brand sales in the U.S. for 2005, led by Toyota (981,645), are predictable with Honda (686,160) in second place and Nissan (479,563) in third. Followed by Hyundai (325,598) who is gaining fast, Mazda (193,311), Subaru (181,250), Scion (156, 485), Acura (151,662), Lexus (151,226), Kia (146,395), Infiniti (94,901), Mitsubishi (86,472), and Suzuki (57,772).

And finally, the European brands led by Volkswagen (206,245), are as follows: BMW (197,833), Mercedes (183,017), Volvo (87,611), Audi (83,066), Mini (40,820), Saab (36,071), Jaguar (30,424), and Porsche (18,326).

When you consider the number of vehicles sold in a year, it doesn't seem like many compared to what we see on the street. In certain parts of the country, and in particular cities, Honda and Toyota seem to dot much of the landscape. 

The top 10 brands that sold the best in the Chicago area for all of 2005 included Chevrolet (46,229), Toyota/Scion(42,730), Ford (36,511), Honda (34,848), Nissan (20,662), Dodge (16,877), Chrysler (12,440), Hyundai (11,681), Lexus (10,562), and Pontiac (10,514).