http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosins...a01-285438.htm

The Ford rep in the article points out that Chevy may win because of fleet sales, offering a nice little dig....but let's be honest, both divisions rely heavily on fleet sales (heck, Ford owns Hertz, don't they?) It'd be a nice victory, first in 17 years....

 

Even if Chevy manages to wrest the crown from Ford for 2004, they'll quickly lose it again in a year or two. Chevy's new product barrage is mostly done (Cobalt will probably sell fewer units than Cavalier), while Ford has the 500, Freestyle, and Mustang to pick up volume.

Now if only Chevy had a RWD coupe to add a few thousand units .

 

Well, a lot of the sales of the new vehicles like the Malibu, Equinox, Colorado, Corvette(low sales I know but every little bit helps) started selling only a few months ago and are not fully realized in the year long sales. Also, Chevy will be revamping the whole truck line in the next few years and after that is when the rwd cars start comming out so they could very well keep the title. We will just have to see.

 

Yeah Chevy has nothing coming . We know the 06 Impala and MC will have much better interiors, and that is what the public cares about. They will also have new engines and a V8 available. The Cobalt will sell very well and Aveo will take care of the low end. The HHR will sell about 80K a year or more, Chevy is counting on 100K. The GMT360s will be redone soon as will the GMT900's and the fullsize SUV's. Then you have a Zeta sedan, think 7 series size. And a new Camaro that will steal quite a few Mustang fans because it will be a more rounded out car, that will get better gas mileage and quite possible have AWD as an option. There is also HEAVY speculation that a Kappa Chevy in the neighborhood of 100K per year is planned. Also Guy has being saying something about a Malibu coupe named Chevelle, I think this is just wishful thinking but hey it could happen.

Yep you are right there is nothing there, Ford will win all and Chevy will loose it all again. BTW care to put GMC with Chevy and see how things stack up?

 

Cobalt + Aveo will be lucky to equal Cavalier’s numbers from just a couple years ago.

HHR is not coming anywhere close to 80k; anyone who’d want one has already bought a PT Cruiser. To sell 80k a year they’d need to install heavy-duty springs just to hold all the cash they’ll have to put on the hood.

The fugly new minivan is going to more of a disappointment than the Freestar, especially now that it has two more sisters to compete with.

The Impy will improve as a car, but there’s not much room in the market for it to sell in appreciably higher volumes. It’ll be happy to just to not lose market share.

There’s no way a Chevrolet Kappa will could move 100k units a year with Pontiac and Saturn also selling variants. That entire niche is barely 100k per year.

A FWD Chevelle? If you thought the GTO purists threw a hissy-fit...

Chevy’s trucks might improve, but that market is becoming more crowded all the time so they’ll be lucky to hold their ground. And if the Cheyenne concept is any indication of the styling direction, look for things to get really ugly (BTW, I agree about combining Chevy's sales with GMC, but that’s a different discussion).

 

I think Jim Padilla <sp?> said [2005] Mustang sales were 60% greater than they thought they would be. You can probably add another 40,000 sales to Ford's numbers right there. Plus, the new F-150 is just murdering the truck market. I really believe the 500, Fusion, Freestyle, etc...will help Ford a lot. Even Mercury is starting to get some nice cars (even if they are Ford clones).

 

I'm curious as to why you feel that way. It isn't like Cavalier has built a sterling reputation for quality and loyalty of its owners. The Cobalt is a better car in every way, build quality and driving dynamics should be vastly improved, the interior looks to be light years ahead...so why will it lose sales compared to Cavalier? The only thing I can see is that it's priced a bit more than the Cavy was, but seeing as how the Cavalier was basically bottom of the barrel junk transportation I think most folks would gladly pay a bit more for a better car. I know I would. I wouldn't mind getting an economical small car down the road to compliment my Camaro, and I wouldn't even consider Cavalier. I'm confident I'd consider Cobalt after a test drive.

 

[QUOTE=PaperTarget]Plus, the new F-150 is just murdering the truck market. QUOTE]

Murdering???

according to pickuptruck.com...thru the end of august

ford = 598,218
GM = 587,251

winning? yes. murdering? no.

 

[QUOTE=Tackleberry]With the oldest full size trucks on the market GM is still right behind the newest, and arguable the best. Just shows the size and strength of the General.

 

Is that GMC + Chevy??? And are those only the 1500 or all makes? Let me see a linky please

 

That looks like all Silverado sales (1500, 2500, 3500) along with all Sierra sales. That is not including Avalanche sales, which accounts for another 55,000 units.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_...eries_0904.xls

 

the Cobalt will sell like crazy, on top of the Aveo which will take up more then the Cavi's share in sales.
Malibu sales are doing great. Impala is getting redesign to boost its already great sales.
I cant wait for the upgraded trucks.

And think of this....what if Ford drops both the Crown Vic and Taurus? 2 of there LARGEST fleet sales, and 2 of there biggest number makers, especialy the Taurus. Talking about putting money on the hood. You can get a fully loaded SEL for under 16k. Pretty sad.

 

I believe that trying to march Cobalt upmarket, even though it is a vastly improved car, isn't going to work. Cavalier sold well for one reason: it was cheap, yet reasonably sized and equipped. A lot of car for the money. If someone wanted a "better" car and was willing to pay for it, they'd buy a Civic or Corolla. So now comes Cobalt, which is about the same size and has the same equipment as a Cavalier, yet costs much more. The value buyers are going to be turned off. And the people who want a "better" car are still going to buy a Civic because Cobalt has no track record.

As for Aveo, it's smaller than Cavalier yet not a lot cheaper so the value buyers are going to be turned off by that. Plus it's Korean-made, which will also work against it.

 

Depending on what you read, GM truck sales are down 17% and Ford's are up (and still going up). I don't see GM taking the truck title this year.

 

I'm talking about Chevy sales vs. Ford sales and here we are talking about trucks. Congrats to the new F-150 but after all, it is new and has an extremely aggressive marketing campaign going for it right now. It should be outselling the Silverado.