Six surprises from January auto sales
Every month, auto sales offer surprising nuggets. A car you'd forgotten about suddenly becomes a hot seller. Something you assume was a given becomes "not operative," as former president Nixon's mouthpiece used to say about the chief's previous stand when he flip-flopped.
Here are six surprises from January auto sales:
1 -- Jeep Patriot, on sale since horses were dominant -- well, since 2006 as an '07 model, anyway -- suddenly finds fresh legs.
Sales in January boomed 36%. Only the bigger Cherokee had a larger percentage sales increase at Jeep, the star brand for FCA US -- formerly Chrysler Group.
Jeep likes to say it's just a good product getting proper recognition, but Jeep marketing director Jim Morrison does allow that an ad camping promotion a $199 lease deal gets some credit. As do "aggressive incentives" generally. And a mini-flood of buyers dumping compact cars to jump into the lowest-price Jeep because "they've had enough of shoveling the driveway" after snowstorms.
And, of course, some jazzy trims, such as the blacked-out (including the wheels) look of the Alitude mid-level version and the full-gray monochrome appearance of the High Altitude version.
2 -- Speaking of something old being new again, General Motors' Chevrolet brand's long-in-the-tooth Equinox SUV likewise showed a strong sales increase in January.
It should be down for the count, awaiting replacement, but no. GM has cleverly kept updating it with modern electronics and now, a base model with a lower price without being bare-bones.
We'd have expected no better than hold-your-own results, not a 34.4% sales jump.
3 -- Back to FCA: Its lack of strong-selling cars has been somewhat camouflaged by increases from new models, such as the Chrysler 200, and from dawning recognition by buyers of its Dodge Dart -- both strong in January. But strikingly, nearly three-quarters of the company's January sales were truck and SUV models. For better (right now) or worse (if fuel prices go back up a lot) the former Chrysler Group is a truck/SUV company; cars are a side dish.
4 -- Volkswagen, the magically expanding auto brand not long ago, can't seem to muster mojo nowadays. While Jeep, Chevy and others were doing good business on their old SUVs, VW had trouble finding buyers for its aging Tiguan compact SUV and the larger Touareg SUV.
A new three-row SUV isn't due to go into production until next year, so no immediate hope there. Maybe a new Tiguan will show up sooner than expected. That is, after all, a hot segment.
5 -- Subaru, which outsold VW brand last year and hit 500,000 U.S. sales the first time, found quite a lot of buyers again in January, without dramatic-looking changes in the new models. It's been heading up consistently for months, so another good month shouldn't be a surprise.
But it is.
Who are all those people so newly and fervently converted to a brand that not long ago seemed the province of New Englanders and Coloradans?
6 -- There's no middle in the car world. Makes you wonder who buys all those mainstream Toyota Camrys, Honda Accords, Hyundai Sonatas and Volkswagen Passats, but the folks who are supposed to know say the bulk of the auto business is at the far ends.
"The most popular vehicle segments are now clustered at opposite ends of the price spectrum," says .Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst at car shopping website Edmunds.com.
Sounds dire, but it means opportunity. "Shoppers looking for more-affordable new vehicles have plenty to choose from, as the segments in the low end of the price range are among those growing at the fastest clip," she says.
"Compact crossovers were the most-researched vehicle segment on Edmunds.com in January," she says.
Her report -- The Myth of the Average-Priced Vehicle -- is at www.edmunds.com/industry-center/.
Among the highlights: The average new car sold in 2014 was $32,386, but a surprising number of car shoppers are either paying far more or far less than the average. Only about 31% of new car shoppers paid between $26-35,000 in 2014. Of the 32% of car shoppers who spent more, most spent it on well-equipped trucks or SUVs.
And here's something that's not a surprise if you've been shopping, or even given a curious nod to the market lately: Pick-up truck prices have skyrocketed 41% in the past decade, while SUVs have only risen about 9%.
Where there was price parity between the two types in 2004, trucks now are $8,000 more expensive, on average, than SUVs are.