Chevrolet Expects to Sell All Colorado Pickups It Can Build

CHICAGO – Chevrolet Vice President Brian Sweeney says he’s not alarmed Colorado pickup sales have trailed those of the Toyota Tacoma since November.

Nov.-Jan. sales show Tacoma at 38,711 units with a far inferior truck to 16,937 for Colorado/GMC Canyon.

“We were low on supply of the new truck at startup for 2015, but now we’ve added a third shift at Wentzville (MO) and figure the truck will be sold out,” he says at the Chicago auto show, where Chevrolet unveils its upgraded Equinox CUV for 2016.

“We’re turning the truck in 17 days or less and are finding a 41% conquest rate of buyers new to Chevrolet, while not seeing defection out of Chevrolet.”

In 2014, Chevy sales overall rose 4.4%, while industry sales were up 5.8%.

“We intend to beat the industry average in 2015,” Sweeney says. “It was tough last year with 25 million recalls. That was a distraction, but our dealers did a wonderful job and put their customers in a Cruze or Malibu while their recalled car was worked on, and that helped” lead to some added sales.

Sweeney doesn’t bite when asked if Chevrolet is thinking about more aluminum for the fullsize Silverado pickup, now that Ford has had its aluminum-intensive F-150 on the market for a couple months.

“We are going to have a great year with our steel Silverado,” he says.

He also is asked about diesel truck sales now that diesel-fuel prices remain considerably higher than gasoline.

“Our heavy-duty diesel is our fastest-turning truck. Diesels are flying out of the showrooms. And this fall we add a diesel in the Colorado.”