jaunty75

Thought these might be of interest. These are U.S. sales.



Ford: December sales +33% over a year ago, increases U.S. market share by 1 percentage point to 15% in 2009, first increase in market share since 1995. Of the three U.S. companies, this is the successful one.

GM: December 2009 sales -6% over December 2008; full year 2009 sales -30% over 2008. GM sells 2,084,492 cars. Oh for the late 1970s and early 1980s, when GM sold over 1,000,000 Oldsmobiles alone per year for several years during that period.

Chrysler: December 2009 sales -4% over December 2008, full year 2009 sales -36% over 2008. Chrysler sells fewer than 1 million cars in a calendar year for the first time since 1962.


The following are all 2009 sales compared to 2008

Subaru: +15%

Hyundai: +8%

Honda: -19%

Toyota: -20%

Nissan: -19%

BMW: -20%

Daimler AG (Mercedes): -18%

Porsche: -24%

Volkswagen: -4%

Jaguar/Land Rover (now owned by India's Tata Motors): +65%, but this was against very low sales for 2008. Total U.S. sales of these two brands in 2009 was 38,621. In 2009, GM sold that many cars every week.

2blu442

Interesting numbers, thanks for posting them!

jaunty75

I think the most interesting thing is that even the supposedly bullet-proof Japanese "big three" (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) aren't immune to the recession's effects.

OLD SKL 69

I agree, and I don't think their product is any better than either GM or Ford's. Chrysler's initial quality reports have been much worse than average in reliability and at least around here, they have resorted to giving stuff away with discounts approaching 40% off of MSRP just to keep market share. Hard to make any money doing that.

Nice to see but I think they are doing well because of two reasons: public perception that they did not need bailout money and a small "buy american" backlash.

They were just lucky. They knew they were in trouble over 2 years ago and mortgaged just about everything they had to raise capital to improve their products. At least someone there had a clue.

Does not appear that anyone at GM had a clue with the way they burned through cash and ended up in bankruptcy. If you're a GM fan like me, I'm sure your tremendously disgusted with them.

Thanks for passing the data along, certainly is very interesting.

jaunty75

Very true. GM and Ford products are the equal of the Japanese makes in terms of design and quality. What these two companies fight, though, are old perceptions, which are difficult to change and can last a long time.

jaunty75

I think you're exactly right, and I think the results show how important both can be. I'll tell you that Ford gets lots of credit in my mind, and I would be much more inclined to buy from them instead of GM precisely because they were better managed, and that should be rewarded.

By all rights, if the marketplace had been allowed to work, GM and Chrysler would have gone the way of Pierce-Arrow and Kaiser-Frazer by now, and Ford would be the only U.S. auto company still in business. It's mean and nasty to say, but these companies should have gone out of business, and Ford should have been rewarded for its better management. This process weeds out inefficiency. This is how the capitalist, free-market system works.

But the government steps in for political and other reasons and distorts the market, and now a company that is not taking government support has to compete with others that do. That hurts all of them and keeps the Ford-like company scrambling and weaker than it otherwise would be.

If you want a preview of what health-care "reform" that includes a "government option" competing against private insurance companies would be like, just look out the window because here it is.

wmachine

I'd hardly call that "just lucky". Far from it.

wmachine

Don't go into shock here, Jaunty, but I'm with you 100% on this, well said beginning to end.

jaunty75

Too late!

OLD SKL 69

What I meant Wmachine was that Ford was lucky with their timing. Had they held out any longer before leveraging everything they had (like until the end of last year) the sales crash (which no one saw coming) would have thrown them into the same boat as GM and Chrysler. Out of money and options and dependent on our government to bail them out as well.

I am giving Ford their due, at least they realized they could not keep bleeding money at that rate and needed to change direction.

Destructor

My 2000 Grand Marquis has been one of the most dependable cars I've owned, I bought an 07 Grand Marquis in 08. They are the only traditional V8 powered RWD cars around. I was a GM fan but when my 88 caprice had to be replaced in 2003 I had no where to turn as far as getting something similar, so I went Ford. Some of the Fords do have rust issues though. That's why my 07 is off the road for the winter, sleeping with my 70 Cutlass, the Cutlass has the garage. The 2000 is my general purpose vehicle. . . . . I celebrate earth day by driving all three of my cars.

wmachine

I understand, but still don't consider good timing to be "luck". I certainly don't know what was going on inside Ford at that time, but I see no evidence that would lead me to conclude that luck was involved. No more than bad (or no) moves at GM to be "bad luck".

wmachine

I think when we consider 10 year old models, we need to keep it in perspective.
What it is:
An indication of the direction the automaker was going, and what contributed to them being on the path they are on.
What it isn't:
Any measure of what they are today. For the most part, any "quality history" outside of what, a year (or two?) is not a valid measure of where they are today. For example, Hundai (at least some of their models) have gone from being a joke to being shoulder to shoulder with Honda and Toyota.
I am *not* sending this thread in a "what cars are better" direction, but just want to illustrate the real perspective of past ownership perspectives.