Yahoo Autos These Are The Top-Selling Vehicles Of 2015
The 2015 Ford Mustang: If it was cool enough for Steve McQueen, it’s cool enough for everybody. It’s the top-selling sports car in the U.S.
Are the best movies the ones with the longest lines? The best Broadway shows the ones that you can’t get a discounted ticket for? The best restaurants the ones where you can’t get a table on a Saturday night?
The truth is that “the best” is in the eye of the beholder, and varies from person to person and household to household. Frank Sinatra recorded a song called “Nothing but the Best,” in which Ol’ Blue Eyes suggests that a Lincoln is the best ride. With a few weeks of the year left, though, the best-selling cars in the U.S. in the 10 categories we’ve examined are pretty clear based on sales volumes through November.
What does this list tell us about the competitive state of the U.S. auto industry, the buying tastes of the car-buying public and the company that managed to have the No. 1 vehicle in five of the 10 categories?
General Motors GM -2.94% trades positions with Volkswagen and Toyota for global dominance of the auto industry, yet it has no entries in this list of top U.S. sellers. VW has no entries either.
One of the things I notice in looking at a list of top sellers is that while quality ratings from third-party judges like Consumer Reports and J.D. Power are very important to many buyers, the success of some brands and individual models in the face of dreadful quality ratings tells me that many buyers are more swayed by their love of a design, price and brand history (I have always bought Plymouths…now what am I going to do”, said a friend when that brand shuttered.
The top sellers in the U.S. include Asian, and American makes, and one German brand. Are you one to follow the crowds, or stake out your own counter-trend choice? Are you a mass-market brand buyer, or do you prefer a niche brand? Read on to see how your taste fits with the vehicles that won the popularity contest this year.
Ford F-Series – Top-Selling Pickup
Year-to-date sales: 695,143
Calling the F-Series the top-selling pickup in America is always a little controversial. The Dearborn-based company has the advantage of selling all its trucks under one brand–Ford–while cross-town rival General Motors sells its pickups under two brands–Chevrolet and GMC. But rules are rules, and Ford is sales king.
The current F-Series sports an innovative weight-saving aluminum structure, a turbo-charged V6 engine in addition to a V8 and diesel option. From the basic F-Series to the luxurious King Ranch and the sporty performance Raptor, the F-Series is America’s darling when it comes to pickups.
Toyota Camry – Top-Selling Midsize Sedan
Year-to-date sales: 392,056
The satirical website The Onion.com recently posted that 1992 Toyota Camrys were being recalled simply because it was time for those owners to get a new car. Pretty funny. But the Camry has led the country in passenger car sales for most of the last twenty years because it is the no-surprises car. It has high quality and simplicity for people who get giddy over the number of times they don’t have to take their car in for repair, and how many miles and years they can rack up before having to get a new car. The Camry so appeals to people who want no mechanical drama in their lives that they most often order it in beige, which is kind of a non-color.
Toyota Corolla – Top-Selling Compact Sedan
Year-to-date sales: 330,887
You can read my comments about the Camry, except the Corolla is for folks seeking even greater value. Whereas the official color of Camry seems to be beige, the Corolla’s seems to be red as they seem to be everywhere. The Corolla nameplate goes back decades. In some ways, it is the replacement for the original Volkswagen Beetle, more so than the Beetle sold today. That’s because Corolla appeals to intelligent, research-hungry, coupon-clipping people who are not impressed with expressions of style. “You know what my style is? No style. I’m about substance baby!”
While there is certainly all the safety and tech features available to purchase for the Corolla, I am thinking there is a lot of overlap among Corolla owners, those who have given up cable, Groupon junkies and people clinging to flip-phones.
2015 Toyota Prius – Top-Selling Hybrid
Year-to-date sales: 103,676
The car that put hybrid driving on the map even though it was not the first of its kind. Toyota will sell almost 140,000 this year when the company closes the books on 2015–not bad in a year when gasoline is cheaper than bottled water and milk.
The Prius is the BMW 3 Series of hybrids. No, not because of equal fun-to-drive character as the German brand, but rather because of the multiple versions it comes in–a five-door sedan that comes in five trims, the larger Prius V and the compact Prius C.
With an EPA rating of 50 mpg, the car is the poster-car of the rich, frugal, green crowd. It also sports a spacious back seat. Interior materials feel a bit flimsy and doors sound tinny when you shut them. But Toyota can afford to downgrade some aspects of the car in the name of high profitability since it dominates the category. An all-new design should help it surpass previous sales records.
