TRDFantasy

Sort of a misleading headline;

Honda Civic is the Best Selling Vehicle in the United States in MAY 2008.

Yes, as Toyota (in owners manuals and internal company documents) calls the Matrix the "Corolla Matrix", but it's marketed as only "Matrix". Similarly, Honda counts Civic coupe, and Civic hybrid sales together in its Civic sales total.

jracerlmn

i was just wondering because the when toyota sells the Matrix they label the car as Toyota Matrix. No "corolla" anywhere.

The civic with the coupe and hybrid and all that, still sells the car as civics. Just wondering if Toyota padded the fact that Matrix doesn't sell well so they put the sales under the corolla.

ISF_GG

iTrader: (2)

I think we'll be seeing a lot more similar news in the future, as smaller, more fuel efficient cars like the Civic, Corolla, and other cars in this catagory displace the less fuel efficient F150's of the world. Wait till gas is $5-$6 a gallon. Then cars like the Yaris, and Prius will be the #1 cars sold in America.

spwolf

Civic simply had more units on the lots when the time came :-).

bagwell

until June's numbers come out, currently......Honda Civic is the best selling vehicle in the United States.

it would be interesting to see year to date totals tho.

TRDFantasy

Again, Toyota officially refers to the Matrix as the "Corolla Matrix" but they simply market it only as the "Matrix".

The Matrix is nothing more than a Corolla wagon, just like the Civic coupe is simply a coupe built on the same platform as the Civic sedan.

Again, the Civic is the best selling vehicle in the US in MAY. Year-to-date, the Civic is NOT the best selling vehicle. That honour still goes to the Camry. The Camry holds a large lead over the Civic in terms of year-to-date sales.

TruthTellr

If you were comparing camry to other cars in it's class, yes, camry does seem to be a bit off compared to Accord or new Sonata. But if this was about why camry fell out of number one spot and beaten by corolla, the flaw in camry interior has nothing to do with it. It's just the publics recent misguided attempt at saving gas.

Corolla feels like a tin can next to camry. Go to a toyota dealership and sit in both or drive them for comparison and you'll know what I mean. Toyota has done a great job with this new corolla, but it's still an economy car with cheap hard plastic all over. It's even worse than last gen even though the design looks better. Corolla has become very quiet and refine up to about 20mph, after that it reveals it's econocar roots. Camry is refine, smoother and quieter all the time. Camry even handles better and is much more stable through bad roads. Steering maybe numb and has some slacks, but suspension tracks straight and true and way better than many sportscars while filtering out all the nasty stuff, making long trips over crappy roads a relaxing stress free drive. It doesn't hop and thump all over the place like corolla, civics, mazda3 and other econocars which requires constant correction.

Alot of the people who chose Civics and corolla over camry and accord are a bit confused. They go in to buy an econocar to save money on gas, but ends up loading them up to the point that their econocar cost as much if not more than a base camry/accord(which already comes equipped with most if not all the civic/corolla options standard). In the end, they end up paying more for an expensive econocar that's still noisier, cramper, slower and with a buzzier engine. If they took some time to crunch some numbers, they'd realize Civic/corolla don't offer that much more fuel savings especially for people who do alot of commute up high terrains like in Denver and through the Los angeles mountains. The little motor in the corolla/civic struggles to keep up with traffic and ends up sucking more gas than the larger engine in the accord/camry. Just recently, Accords are offered with 2.9% for 60month financing and dealers are selling them at invoices and below(at least that's how I got mine).

People are also making the same calls by choosing 4cyl RAV/camry over their V6 counterparts. They buy the 4cyl over the v6 to save money, only to blow it all on options, yet the difference in fuel economy is only 1-2 mpg. Again, the V6 model already comes standard with many of the options on the 4cyl models and is only $1000-2000 more. The difference in HP/torque and engine smoothness is night and day. V6 camry also has $1500 cash back and is more likely to sell closer at invoice.

I understand why people do what they do, but they just aren't thinking it through thoroughly.

bagwell

I'd like to see year to date number for all vehicles....did you find somewhere?

thanks.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Take a look at the MAY 2008 sales thread. Most of the manufacturers list Year-to-date information next to the monthly sales figure.

speedflex

Really. YTD for both cars is:
GS-7,846
M-7,555
It's pretty much a neck and neck battle for middle of the pack in this class.

As to the Civic (and Corolla) it's a sign of the times. Gas hitting and exceeding 4 bucks/gallon. Maybe $5 by end of year. U.S. consumers are faced with choices they never had to make before. That's why trucks like the F-series are in for a rough ride.

DrUnBiased

I thought this generation Civic was a failure?

First car to outsell the Ford F-Series since 1991 and best selling car in all of North America for the month of May. Not too shabby for a failure, I guess.

Nextourer

What TRDFantasy said. Internally, it's labelled the Corolla Matrix or the Camry Solara. The only public place you'll find it is in the owner's manual. My friend's 2004 Matrix's owner's manual says Corolla Matrix.

bagwell

this is what I was looking for....Camry still has a way to go to be #1 for the year....but its tough competing against the F150 because of HUGE amount of commercial sales that make up its numbers (50%??).

June 3, 2008;

Reuters compiled the following chart of the 20 top-selling vehicles in the U.S. through May of 2008 as reported by the automakers.

Total sales of the top 20 vehicles fell 3 percent or -73,755 units to 2,347,879. Following is a list of the top-20 selling vehicles, ranked by total units.

Following is a list of the top-20 selling vehicles, ranked by total units.

RANK VEHICLE......................2008......2007....'07 RANK...%Chng
1 Ford F-Series P/U............235,924...290,282......1.........-18.7
2 Toyota Camry.................198,309...193,900......3.........+2.3
3 Chevy Silverado-C/K P/U...197,030...265,941......2.........-25.9
4 Honda Accord.................166,158...153,431......6......... +8.3
5 Honda Civic....................164,994...137,288......8......... +20.2
6 Toyota Corolla................152,308...165,722......4 ......... -8.1
7 Nissan Altima..................133,465...114,318......9 ......... +16.7
8 Chevrolet Impala.............122,281...144,541......7 ......... -15.4
9 Dodge Ram P/U...............112,795...154,143......5......... -26.8
10 Ford Focus...................105,499...77,732......15......... +35.7
11 Chevrolet Cobalt.............93,362...79,257......14......... +17.8
12 Honda CR-V...................89,017...84,464......11 ......... +5.4
13 Toyota Prius..................79,675...76,747......16 ......... +3.8
14 Ford Escape..................76,966...73,058......17 ......... +5.3
15 Chevrolet Malibu............74,925...59,627......26 ......... +25.7
16 Ford Fusion...................73,197...66,260......20......... +10.5
17 GM Pontiac G6...............71,062...59,063......28 ......... +20.3
18 GMC Sierra P/U..............70,765...84,106......12 ......... -15.9
19 Toyota Tundra..............66,278...61,113......23 ......... +8.5
20 Ford Econo/Club Wagon...63,869...80,641......13 ......... -20.8

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

20.2% gain on the civic, and it's been half the year WOW.I can see it going up even higher as summer comes. Then of course gas price just happens to fall around election time so it wont climb as much then

TRDFantasy

The Civic has an even longer way to go before people can start claiming its the "best selling vehicle in the US". Notice the large sales gap between the Civic and Camry year-to-date. For the year, if any vehicle has a chance at taking away the honour of best-selling vehicle from the F-Series, it's the Camry not the Civic.