I am fascinated when I look at the sales figures for the various car and truck companies selling vehicles in the United States. Am I becoming the numbers guy here? Maybe. What really interests me is the figures for the really expensive cars, and the merely expensive cars. So this week, I'll look at those numbers and tell you about them. Automotive News provides the numbers.
Does Rolls-Royce outsell Maybach? They do in Germany, but they do not here. In April, Rolls sold 35 Phantoms here, and 140 in the first four months of 2005. Mercedes sold "only" 8 Maybachs, and 56 in the first four months of the year. Mercedes says Maybach is profitable, but they have to sell more cars than they are in the United States to be profitable. Perhaps they sell them in the middle east and Europe. What about Bentley? They don't break down the individual Bentley models and I am sure that the Continental GT outsells the other models by far. Their total for April is 380 and 1183 for the first four months, which is a big number compared to the others, but the Continental is almost half the price of the Rolls and Maybach -- yet it is $190,000.
The other exotics are also interesting. Ferrari sold 100 cars in April and 405 cars in the first four months of 2005. Lamborghini, which is part of Volkswagen these days, sold 56 cars in April and 224 cars for the first four months of the year. That is a big increase for Lamborghini compared to the pre-VW era. The Gallardo is a significant part of Lamborghini sales. Aston Martin also is increasing sales from their previous single-digit monthly sales. Their April sales were 38, and 133 were sold in the first four months. Sales are down, however, from last year when they sold 60 and 174 for the same periods. Another player in this arena is Maserati. Unfortunately sales for the the individual models aren't available, but the totals are 206 for April and the four-month total is 515. While their prices tend to be half of the others, the totals are impressive. Another one to include as an "exotic", but not in the same price class, is Lotus. They sold 10 Elises in April and 28 for the first four months of 2005. Oh yes, and the exotic everyone forgets, Acura sold a grand total of 33 NSXes in April up from just 19 last year and 81 so far this year. Even Porsche sold more GTs with a total of 39 and 112 in the first four months of the year. So Porsche sells more GTs than Aston Martin sells of all their models and Acura moves almost as many ancient NSXes -- "the Accord of GT cars".
Moving down a segment, the luxury sedan class shows an interesting tale of sales. It shouldn't be too surprising that the big seller is the Lexus LS430 with 2398 sold in April and 9080 sold in the first four months. The Germans come next with the Mercedes S-class selling 1457 for April, and 4933 for the first four months. Next in line, not too far back, is BMW with the 7-series selling 1182 in April and 4608 in the first four months. Moving to Britain, we have Jaguar, who sold 789 XJ sedans in April and 3122 so far this year. Bringing up the rear of the luxury sedan class is Audi who sold just 545 A8 models in April and 1790 for the first four months of 2005. What are Jaguar's and Audi's problems? Jaguar has an old looking sedan with modern technology underneath. That just doesn't work that well. And even with Howard Stern's support, Audi just can't seem to figure out how to sell the really beautiful A8. And that brings me to Volkswagen's Phaeton with sales of just 61 in April, down significantly from 173 last year. The trend is down in sales by about half, selling 303 this year versus 626 last year. Apparently few people want to buy a luxury sedan from a Volkswagen dealer for whatever reasons. Reviews have shown that this really is an excellent car. And what about the luxury sedan everyone forgets, the Infiniti Q45? It does even better than the Phaeton, but not much with sales of 81 this April versus 152 last year.
Moving down one class in sedans produces some very interesting results. Who leads this class now? Mercedes' E-class has outsold the others for some time with BMW wanting to take the lead. This is what is the case in Germany today, but sales are distorted there by the fact that almost all the taxis in Germany are E-class diesels. This isn't true anymore in the United States. BMW sold 4571 5-series cars in April, a slight increase from last year. Mercedes sold "only" 3731 E-class cars in April, down significantly from 5065 last year. BMW's year-to-date sales are 15,590 versus Mercedes' 12,660. Apparently customers are reacting to the horrible electronic reliability issues of Mercedes cars. Can this trend be maintained by BMW? I have no prediction.
What about the competition to BMW and Mercedes? The very significant competitor here is Lexus with sales of 3198 new GS models, compared to just 522 last April. I'm sure Lexus management is very proud of this increase in sales. I'm sure Volkswagen management would like to have seen a similar increase in sales for their new A6. They haven't. They sold 1635 new A6es in April versus 1179 last year. Over in England looking at Jaguar would be the S-type, which sold just 798 this April versus 1144 last year. Ford isn't doing well with Jaguar. In the U.S, we have a competitor in this class, and it is the Cadillac STS. They sold 3541, which puts them up with Mercedes and Lexus. This must make GM management happy, but was that with or without GM-pervasive incentives? And the other Japanese? Acura's new "real luxury", the RL sold a rather uncompetitive 1304 this year, which is an increase over the uber-boring older RL's last year sales of 496. This wasn't enough of an effort to be really competitive with the Germans. Then there is the all-new Infiniti M35/M45, which Honda might want to study. They sold 2288 this April, versus last years older model's 168. I'm giving Infiniti the award for the most improved sedan in this class, at least as recognized by the public.
What about the family car feud? The totals here are interesting as well. Of course Toyota leads the way with Camry sales at 40,435 in April and 138,939 for the year so far. Honda isn't as close as I would suspect with Accord sales of 35,235 and year-to-date sales of 112,606. What about the Detroit competition? They are no longer in the same league. GM sold 16,812 Malibus in April and 87,770 for the year, but 23,442 Impalas in April. If you add the 9635 April "Classic" sales that all go to fleets to the Malibu sales, that brings Chevrolet's sort-of-family car sales to 26,447. Ford's new Five Hundred is off to a pretty slow start with just 9215 sales in April and 31,515 for the year. Ford sold many more Tauruses in April with a total of 17,263. Unfortunately many of the Malibus and Tauruses go to rental fleets rather than private sales -- and the private sales are heavily subsidized with rebates. Toyota and Honda, however, have also gotten into the rebate act too. It is really too bad that Detroit seems to have abandoned the car market in the United States with the Japanese taking it over.
