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Industry News: Chrysler Trumps Ford for Number 2 Spot in Canadian Car Market

With last year's auto news often covering Toyota's fight with Ford for the

With the new Grand Caravan and Town and Country, plus 7 more models introduced last year, Chrysler is attracting new Canadian buyers. (Photo: Dodge)

number 2 spot in the U.S. and, even more significant, the Japanese giant's gain on General Motors for the number 1 spot globally, things up in Canada are very different. Toyota, strangely, doesn't even manage a top-3 position.

No, Canadians prefer domestics according to sales information released last week that places General Motors at number 1 with 24.2-percent of their new vehicle market despite total sales of 400,755 units being down 1.7-percent from a 25.9-percent stake in 2006. The big shake up on the north side of the 49th concerns Ford and Chrysler which have swapped 2nd and 3rd positions, with Chrysler, at 232,688 unit sales, now in the number 2 spot equaling 14.1-percent of total new vehicle sales, up 0.4-percent over 2006, and Ford dropping from 14.2-percent in 2006 to 13.5-percent in 2007 with sales of 223,773 units.

Still, Ford's F-150 is Canada's best-selling vehicle. The next-generation truck is just around the corner. (Photo: Ford)

Ford still holds title to most popular vehicle sold in Canada for four years running; it's rugged F-150 pickup the sales leader there as it is here. No doubt sales of the popular light truck have been spurred on by housing starts, up across the country, and growth in the commercial construction sector. Here in the U.S., where the F-150 has long been the best selling vehicle, sales were down for 2007 due to an opposite situation in the housing market, with the subprime lending fiasco reducing the number of housing starts dramatically.

So where does Toyota fit into the Canadian market? While number 2 in the U.S., Toyota holds the number 4 spot in the land of the almost free with 12.2-percent of the market, a gain of 0.1-percent over sales in 2006. Honda, with 10.3-percent of Canada's new car buyers, experienced no growth from 2006 to 2007 for 5th place, while Mazda increased sales by 0.2-percent from 5.0-percent in 2006 to 5.2-percent last year for 6th place. Interestingly, Nissan, which is number 2 behind Toyota in its home Japanese

Domestics be wary! With Toyota's upcoming Corolla, things will likely slide more in its favor north of the border. (Photo: Toyota)

market can only manage 7th place in Canada, although on the positive it gained 0.5-percent from 4.1-percent to 4.6-percent of the market. Hyundai, which would have held onto 7th if Nissan hadn't increased sales so strongly, achieved 4.5-percent of the Canadian market, up 0.2-percent from 2006.

Chrysler's increase in Canada and Toyota's growth in the U.S. has more to do with Ford's decline in both markets than increases in the Dearborn/Windsor based domestic and Japanese automakers, something CEO Alan Mullaly will try and address with new products, such as a small car to fit into the subcompact market under the new Focus, the upcoming Flex, a large people mover to replace the now defunct Freestar minivan, plus cutting edge technologies like its new Microsoft-developed SYNC audio interface, already available with a v.2.0 upgrade. Ford hopes to grow its Lincoln luxury brand with a new full-size model based off of the revised Taurus (a.k.a. Five Hundred) dubbed MKS.

Chrysler, on the other hand, launched nine new models in Canada last year, which included a number of smaller entry-level vehicles, and thus achieved 12 months of consecutive sales growth. No doubt Auburn Hills would like to be able to boast of such achievements.

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