Canada Sees May Sales Record

For a second consecutive month, Canadian consumers drove a record number of new light vehicles off dealer lots in May.

The 195,136 new LVs sold in the month departed dealer lots at a rate of 7,227 on each of 27 selling days, a 1.8% increase form 7,101 daily on volume of 184,646 a year earlier.

May’s selling pace also eclipsed the 7,136 units sold on each of 25 selling days the prior month, when volume reached an April record of 178,400 units.

Compared with the prior May record of 185,086 cars and light trucks delivered in 2007 at a rate of 7,118 daily, last month registered a 1.5% gain.

For the fourth month in row, light-truck sales reach a record of 111,778 units, an 8.1% increase on the prior May high of 99,561 units set a year ago and bested record-April deliveries by 1.4%.

But car sales continued to languish at 85,085 units, ranking only 22^nd for May in the last 30 years, trailing by 5.7% even year-ago’s lackluster performance. The all-time high for the month was reached in 1985, when 118,991 cars were sold in May.

Thanks in large part to several all-time sales records, Ford squeaked past Chrysler, 31,307 units to 31,302, to recapture the LV pole position for the month, although Chrysler hung onto a narrow year-to-date lead of 2,863 units.

In addition to best-ever Ram Pickup sales, other models vying for trophies in May included all-time record sales of Ford Explorer as well as Jeep Cherokee and Wrangler. Dodge Grand Caravan, Ford Escape and F-150 posted best-ever May sales.

Volkswagen credited Jetta popularity and the introduction of the redesigned GTI with helping drive its sales to 6,465 units, the best May performance in its 62-year history.

At the same time, Porsche sales exceeded 500 units for the first time, reaching 530 units, due in part to the introduction of its all-new ’15 Macan small CUV, 104 of which were sold.

Industry LV deliveries so far this year reached 1,122,786 units, 4.0% ahead of like-2013’s 1,079,732 units.

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