Sporty Car Sales And Premium Sporty Car Sales In Canada - April 2012

Now that Canadians across the country have enjoyed an unseasonably warm Victoria Day weekend, we can assume summer is starting early. And is there any car more summery than the Ford Mustang? Sales of the Blue Oval muscle car shot through the roof in April 2012 as the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger fell off a cliff. Mustang sales jumped by 124 units in April; the Challenger was down 215; the Camaro dropped 217. 

April 2012 Sporty Car Sales Chart
Click Either Chart For A Larger View

Think this was a great month for the Mustang? South of the border, in an overall market that was 7.5 times the size in April, Ford sold 14 times more Mustangs than Ford did in Canada.

Significant percentage drops were a common occurrence among sporty coupes, roadsters, and GTs in April. The Mustang, Audi TT, Lexus ISC, Mercedes SLK, and Porsche Cayman were definite exceptions to the rule. Sales of the Honda CR-Z plunged 60%. The Scion tC plunged 35%, or 34 units. It was the worst-selling Scion in Canada, although year-to-date the tC remains the most popular model in the Toyota sub-brand's fleet.

The Volkswagen Group's sportiest models persist with presenting a surprising emphasis on success at the high-end. The $29,375 Good 12-winning Volkswagen GTI sold 147 times in April; 431 times in the first four months of 2012. Meanwhile, the $46,700-$68,600 Audi A5 found 165 buyers in April and 613 in the first four months of 2012. 

April 2012 Premium Sporty Car Sales Chart

Sales of both the GTI and A5/S5 are down this year, not a surprising fact given the Canadian trend which leads away from cars many consumers deem superfluously sporty. Why buy a $30,000 GTI when a $25,500 Golf TDI meets my needs, the Canadian customer asks. Of course, in the U.S., Volkswagen reports nearly identical volume for regular Golfs and Golf GTIs alike.

Porsche's iconic 911 has decades of connection to VW. 911 sales jumped by 20 units in April, a healthy 36% increase. Porsche sold 15 different 911 variants in Canada last month. The leader was the 911 Carrera S, 31 of which were registered. The 911 Carrera S Cabriolet sold 25 times. The most basic Porsche didn't sell at all in April 2011 but found 11 buyers in April 2012. Surely not a single one of those $93,700 911 Carreras remained option-free. Porsche sold three Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolets, three 911 Turbo S Cabriolets, and one 911 Turbo Cabriolet. In all, 41% of the 911s sold in Canada in April were Cabriolets.

Monthly and yearly sales figures for all these models can be found through the dropdown menu at the top right of this page. After the jump, GoodCarBadCar has posted two tables featuring April 2012, year-to-date, and year-over-year percentage change data for sporty cars of all kinds. Click either of the accompanying charts for a larger view, but remember, many of these cars are not direct rivals. A Corvette isn't supposed to sell as often as a Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

Sporty Car	April 2012	% Change	Year To Date	YTD % Change
Audi A5	165	- 35.3%	613	- 15.9%
Audi TT	61	+ 29.8%	146	+ 21.7%
BMW Z4	35	- 36.4%	98	+ 8.9%
Chevrolet Camaro	360	- 37.6%	973	- 16.4%
Chevrolet Corvette	33	- 19.5%	86	- 8.5%
Dodge Challenger	189	- 53.2%	677	- 25.9%
Ford Mustang	568	+ 27.9%	1326	+ 49.2%
Honda CR-Z	40	- 60.0%	90	- 64.4%
Hyundai Genesis Coupe	242	- 23.9%	635	- 2.2%
Hyundai Veloster	385	-----	1518	-----
Lexus ISC	61	+ 5.2%	130	+ 6.6%
Lexus ISF	5	- 66.7%	14	- 44.0%
Mazda MX-5 Miata	103	- 1.0%	246	+ 39.8%
Mazda RX-8	6	- 45.5%	25	- 24.2%
Mercedes-Benz SLK	88	+ 319%	215	+ 306%
Mitsubishi Eclipse	26	- 65.8%	99	- 43.4%
Nissan 370Z	83	- 11.7%	197	+ 10.7%
Porche Boxster	3	- 80.0%	13	- 72.9%
Porsche Cayman	17	+ 41.7%	54	+ 80.0%
Scion tC	64	- 34.7%	429	+ 29.2%
Volkswagen Eos	83	- 18.6%	226	+ 12.4%
Volkswagen GTI	147	- 15.5%	431	- 16.8%
Volvo C70	20	- 44.4%	58	+ 11.5%

Premium Sporty Car	April 2012	% Change	Year To Date	YTD % Change
Audi R8	16	- 23.8%	46	0.0%
BMW 6-Series	43	+ 438%	131	+ 1210%
Dodge Viper	-----	- 100%	4	- 69.2%
Jaguar XK	11	- 21.4%	25	- 46.8%
Lexus LFA	1	- 75.0%	2	- 50.0%
Mercedes-Benz SL-Class	8	- 74.2%	25	- 60.3%
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG	12	+ 7.4%	41	- 24.1%
Nissan GT-R	9	+ 200%	36	+ 500%
Porsche 911	87	+ 35.9%	206	+ 28.0%

Source: Manufacturers & ANDC
Clearly GoodCarBadCar is not suggesting that the cars in the two tables above are all direct competitors. Establishing categories among cars as unique as even the Audi TT and Porsche Boxster has never pleased a single reader, so cars have been lumped together so you can simply see how buyers looking for sports cars, roadsters, hot hatches, convertibles, GTs, and wanna-be sports cars spend their money. Greater categorization of cars would only lead to problems that automakers create by not isolating model-specific sales figures: we don't know how many M3s BMW has sold or how many Civics are Si models, for example. The numbers we do have are listed above.

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