Feature: Just how important are trucks to the Canadian new vehicle market?

Story by John LeBlanc Let's go right to the score card: In 2013, Canadians bought more new vehicles than ever before, to the tune of a record 1.743 million units, according to stats provided by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants. That’s up 4% from 2012, and handily beats the previous record of 1.703 million set in 2002. And, more than ever, trucks did all the heavy lifting to set the record. As has been the case for a few years now, Canadians keep buying more new trucks than passenger cars: 969,361 trucks versus 775,827 cars in 2013. While car sales were flat in 2013 compared to 2012, sales of light trucks (including crossovers, minivans and SUVs) were up 7%. And trucks accounted for six out of the top 10 best-selling models in Canada last year. Take for instance the Chevrolet Silverado I recently drove, one of four full-size pickup trucks that broke into the top 10 list for new vehicles sold in Canada in 2013. The General Motors brand sold 37,490 Silverados in 2013, up 4% from the 35,943 units moved in 2012, making it the 10th best-selling new vehicle in Canada last year. Compact crossovers continue to be popular with Canadians. Some analysts predict the sector will one day outsell the compact car market. The sales figures of the class-leading Ford Escape only confirm this trend. The Escape compact crossover was the seventh most-popular new vehicle in 2013, with sales up 2% to 45,141 units sold on a year-to-year basis. But also note: the Honda CR-V (with 34,481 copies sold) took 11th place in 2013 and the Toyota RAV4 (33,156) finished in 13th place. Despite declining sales, the minivan market is not going away anytime soon. The combination of relatively low pricing, plenty of family-friendly features and more room than the typical crossover means there will always be a market for minivans. And the segment leader continues to be the Dodge Grand Caravan. While it outsells the next-best-selling Toyota Sienna minivan by four-to-one, the Grand Caravan was the sixth best-selling vehicle in Canada in 2013 with 46,732 copies sold last year. As the overall new truck market increased in 2013, so did the GMC Sierra. And despite its so-called “premium” brand positioning over “mainstream” Chevrolet, GMC’s Sierra full-size pickup continues to out-sell its mechanically identical Silverado platform-mate, both of which were redesigned for the 2014 model year. With 46,908 GMC Sierras sold in 2013, sales were up 10% compared to the 42,721 units moved the previous year, moving the pickup up from 7th-place to 5th-place in this year’s top 10. Not only was the Sierra GMC’s best-selling model in 2013, it continued to be General Motors of Canada’s best-selling vehicle overall. Just as Fiat-Chrysler ended up in 2nd-place in overall sales in Canada in 2013 to Ford, its Ram (nee Dodge) full-size truck family ended up as the second-best-selling new vehicle — car or truck — behind Ford’s perennially best-selling F Series. With sales up a substantial 16% in 2013 compared to 2012, the Ram family of trucks continues to be incredibly popular with Canadian buyers. Of the 260,015 Fiat, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, SRT and Ram brand vehicles sold in Canada last year, more than one-third were a Ram pickup. Now, if you want to see how important the truck sector is to the Canadian new vehicle market, there’s no better example than Ford’s F Series of full-size tucks. To no one’s surprise, Ford was Canada’s top selling automaker in 2013, with 283,451 new Ford and Lincoln cars and trucks sold. Also unsurprising, Ford’s F Series of full-size pickups was the automaker’s best selling vehicle and the most popular new car or truck in Canada, as it has been for almost a half-century. However, what caught some in the industry off-guard was the large boost in F Series sales in 2013. After setting a sales record of 106,358 units sold in 2012, F Series sales jumped 15%, to a new record of 122,325 copies. And with an all-new 2015 F Series (seen above) slated to go on sale this fall, there’s little reason to think the F Series won’t be at the top of the charts by the end of this year as well. This article was originally published at Driving.ca

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