Car Weakness Holds Down Canada July Sales

Dealers in Canada sold a record 113,896 new light trucks in July, besting by 2.5% the prior benchmark set a year ago at 111,066. Both months had 26 selling days.

It marked the seventh consecutive light-truck July sales record that began at 76,531 in 2010.

But that didn’t translate into a light-vehicle record due to a sharp decline in car sales.

Car deliveries were off 11.3%, to 58,900 from prior-year’s 66,402 units, ranking only fourth-best in the last 31 years. The month’s car deliveries equaled only 64% of the record 91,765 units sold in July 1985.

Total LV deliveries reached just 172,796 for the month, a decline of 2.6% from the July record of 177,568 units posted in 2015.

Thus, light trucks accounted for 65.9% of the Canadian LV market in July up from 62.6% a year earlier.

A 9.5% sales gain over year-ago nudged Ford into first place for the month ahead of archrival Fiat Chrysler, which suffered a 13.8% decline, but FCA managed to hang on to a slim 1,518-unit lead in the January-July tally.

General Motors, off 6.9% for the month, remained solidly in third place both for July and the year to date.

Canada LV sales for January-July totaled 1,159,591 units, 4.6% ahead of the 1,108,902 cars and light trucks sold in the same period a year earlier.

[email protected]