Good news from the U-S auto industry, sales are up across the big three. Chrysler, GM and Ford posted positives numbers for November. That includes another month of record setting sales for the Toledo-built Jeep Wrangler.
The company saw a 14% jump over last year, marking the 32nd straight month of year over year sales gains. Wrangler sales jumped 12-percent, setting a new record for November.
More good news from General Motors. The Detroit automaker saw a three percent jump in sales over last November, led by Cadillac and Buick sales. Some bad news though, the Chevy Silverado saw a 10% dip in sales. The truck is GM's biggest seller.
Ford also saw a jump in sales, up nearly 7-percent this November. The company saw it's strongest truck sales since 2005, with sales of the Ford F-series jumping 18%.
Of course, those numbers are good news for local dealers. In fact, it has also been a banner year for the dealerships we visited and they're expecting sales to keep right on growing into the new year.
Grogan's Towne has been in business for more than 50 years and this year is a record breaker for the Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealer. Denny Amrhein is the managing partner, "Grogan is going to have the best year in the 55 year history of the Grogan name, the best...over all those years. We're up 45% to date. I've got no complaints, that's why I am smiling all the time."
Chrysler posted it's best November since 2007 and Amrhein says one of the driving forces behind the automaker's success is the iconic Toledo built Wrangler,"It's an amazing vehicle and once people buy one, they keep on buying them, and they drive them for a long time."
Marianne Ballas says November was a big month at Ballas Buick GMC too,"Buick was up in our store for November, 116% to objective. We are the number one Buick dealer in the state and we're number one in our zone. Toledo is loving the new Buicks, and rightfully so, it's a great product loaded with great technology."
One forecast is suggesting the national vehicle sales numbers will hit 15 million for the year. While that's short of the peak of 17 million in 2005, it's a vast improvement from 2009, when just over 10 million vehicles were sold. Dealers are expecting the trend to keep on going in 2013, "For next year they are predicting a 10-12% national sales increase and we look forward to it. We're not trying to figure out what's doing it, we just want it to keep going here at Grogan's Towne"
"We have 9 new launches set for 2013 and that's just Buick and GMC ,that does not include the rest of GM's divisions, so everything we have will be refreshed, redone or brand new."
November is typically a lackluster month for car sales because of cold weather and holiday anticipation, but buyers have been returning to showrooms in recent months as greater access to financing, pent up demand and improvement in the job market have boosted consumer confidence. Superstorm Sandy is also getting some of the credit for the November sales numbers. The storm hit the end of October which forced many people in the Northeast to postpone their purchases until November.
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