Projo Cars Blog

Hey, how soon we forget!

No sooner do gas prices fall a few cents than we turn back to the good ol' trucks, notes USA Today.

This would seem to be the conclusion from August's sales figures which show sales of pickups up from July, with the Chevrolet Silverado the nation's best-selling vehicle and Ford's F-Series No. 4. Even Chrysler doubled sales of its Dodge Ram.

But "best-selling" is as relative term in today's market. Overall, sales of new car and pickups were off 15.5 percent compared with last August, resulting in an annual sales rate of 13.7 million vehicles compared with 16.3 million last August.

In addition to lower gas prices, GM was promoting an "Employee Discount for Everyone." However, this did not prevent a 20.3 percent drop in sales last month compared with August 2007, according to Autodata.

But that was better than Chrysler, whose sales were off 34.5 percent, Ford with a 26.5 percent drop. Toyota and Honda joined the Detroit Three with declines of 9.4 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, Nissan was a winner with a 13.6 percent increase in sales.

- Peter C.T. Elsworth

 Tags  Auto sales Chrysler Ford General Motors Honda Nissan Toyota

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