Automakers enjoyed a robust August, at least so far as new pickup trucks and SUVs are concerned.
It’s no surprise that American likes trucks. With fuel prices staying out of the stratosphere, most manufacturers leaned on their pickups and light trucks to once again take up the slack in monthly sales.
Consistent growth for America’s best-selling vehicle continues apace, with the Blue Oval selling a total of 81,839 pickups in August. In fact, that makes for sixteen straight months of year-over-year gains. That doesn’t mean they sold more pickups each month nearly the last year-and-a-half; rather, it means the current month beat the same month one year prior for that amount of time. Still a very impressive achievement.
High-zoot Super Duty trims like the King Ranch and Limited made up more than half of that truck’s retail sales, pushing Super Duty average pricing to a record $58,700 per pickup. For all F-Series, this was the best August in terms of sales since 2005. Also worth noting is the new Lincoln Navigator, flying off dealer lots at 101.6 percent of the pace it did this time last year. Overall at Ford, the average transaction grew by $1400.
The can’t-stop-won’t-stop Jeep brand saw its sales rise to 87,502 vehicles, a full twenty percent more than last August. Four of the brand’s five nameplates reported increases but it was the Wrangler that set a new August record. Sales reached 20,168 units eclipsing the previous record of 18,276 vehicles set in August 2015. It was also the sixth consecutive month Wrangler sales have surpassed the 20,000 mark. With new Wranglers rolling onto dealer lots every single day, your author sees no reason why this trend won’t continue
With the new 2019 Ram 1500 finally being delivered with more than just a single powertrain choice, Ram brand sales rose 27 percent to 54,808 vehicles compared with the previous year. It was the best August since the Ram brand was first created in 2009. The previous record was in 2016 when sales reached 44,419 vehicles. In a rare move, the company broke out a total sales number for the just the Ram 1500, reporting a figure of 36,798 units. Ram is now roughly back on track after suffering through a slow launch of its flagship truck.
General Motors continues to report only on a quarterly basis, so how many pickups they sold is anyone’s best guess. Copies of the new Silverado and Sierra are starting to land in showrooms, according to posts by tuned-in dealers who have embraced this newfangled thing called social media.
Combined sales of Nissan crossovers, trucks and SUVs set an August record, up 22 percent. In particular, the Titan recovered from the doldrums of previous months, selling 4661 units compared to 3726 trucks one year ago. This returns the model to being roughly on par with its sales efforts of 2017. The Frontier is roughly flat as well at 50,856 units to date, outselling everything else on the truck side of Nissan showroom save for the Murano. Its continued popularity all but ensures we’re not getting a new Frontier anytime soon, folks.
Fans of the mid-size Tacoma are opening their wallets at a rapid pace, with that truck outperforming last year’s sales by nearly 25% so far this year. No fewer than 161,644 Taco trucks have found new homes in 2018, an incredible increase of 32,281 over 2017. The Tundra is up about 2% on the year and sold 11,058 copies last month, about half that of its little brother.