AMERICAN VEHICULAR SALES - 1/3rd of 2008 - Part 2

One of the uglier small cars has made a jump into the top ten best-selling vehicles. A large pickup has dropped out of the top five and seems to be trending toward a drop out of the top ten. What's going on? Fuel prices, environmental conscience, and the disappearance of the American middle class; to name just three reasons for a move away from more expensive-to-run trucks and into more economical cars. 

Part 1 of this look at the first third of 2008's American vehicular sales explains a little bit more about January-April's top five sellers. Yesterday, The Good Car Guy explained the Camry's overtaking of the Chevrolet Silverado more thoroughly. Here are more Numbers you need to know.

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2 - total months of full production in 2008 for the new Corolla & Matrix bodystyles as of April, reflected by a 17.3% sales decline for the first four months of the year

2,635 - total Nissan Altima Hybrid sales for the January-April of '08, double the figures for the same period of last year

99,037 - total Nissan Altima sales in the first four months of 2008, a 9.6% increase compared with the same period of 2007

8 - rank of the Chevrolet Impala in U.S. auto sales, although the Impala is one of just two cars in the top ten that generated fewer sales in the first third of this year than the first third of last year

18 - best possible city fuel economy for the Impala, as rated by the EPA, making the large front-wheel driver the only car on this list with no model capable of achieving better than 20mpg in the city

48,540 - difference in sales between the Impala's best selling competitor, the Toyota Camry, and the Impala in the first third of 2008

24.2- percentage decline in sales of the Dodge Ram during the first four months of 2008

279,204 - pace on which the Dodge Ram is prediceted to sell in 2008, based on the first four months of 2008, absent of any downward trending month-after-month

29.1 - percentage increase in sales of the Ford Focus during the first third of 2008 compared with the first third of 2007

4 - positions gained by the Focus in the best sellers list in early 2008, moving from 14th to 10th

38,775 - difference in total sales between the Focus' best-selling competitor, the Honda Civic, and the Focus in the first third of 2008