Last month Honda’s Civic unseated the Ford F-150 as the best-selling vehicle in this country, truly a historic and unprecedented event. For years trucks have normally outsold their nearest car competition by nearly 3 to 1.
In light of Honda’s new success, one has to wonder, why is Toyota announcing that it plans to cut production of their brand new Corolla? Aren’t these two the standard bearers the rest of the auto industry has to gamely follow? Shouldn’t success for Civic-sized vehicles bode well for the success of the Corolla? It doesn’t look like it.
In past economic downturns, Toyota always managed to continue gaining sales growth and market share. Both the parent company and subsidiary Lexus were seen by many in the industry as “bulletproof” when it came to market fluctuations.
But just as Toyota reaches the milestone of passing General Motors as the world’s number one auto manufacturer, it appears they have inherited some of the old General’s maladies. Last month sales were down 4.5 percent for Toyota and a staggering 17.1 percent at Lexus when compared with April.
While it is a bit too early in the life of the new Corolla to write it off as a failure, no doubt the more conservative than Newt Gingrich redesign must be seen as partially to blame. Doesn’t Toyota remember that the big problem at GM used to be the “design by committee” styling of its bread and butter models? A Corolla just looks like a last generation model in desperate need of a thigh master. What is with those huge hips? That’s not styling, that’s what happens when you eat too many Sara Lee Cheesecakes. Not that we know what happens when you eat too many of those or anything.
The Civic, on the other hand, at least has some style and looks like nothing else on the road.
But time to give credit when credit's due. Toyota is still doing better than a lot of its competition and even managed to grow market share a little during the first quarter. It appears that even with a smaller slice of the pie, it still has managed to take a little bit of frosting away from its competition. All of this food talk sure is making us hungry.
Our take? While sales are down, it sure isn’t any time to start counting Toyota out of the sales race. Given time, and perhaps a little less conservatism in the design department, the number one automaker from the “Land of the Rising Sun” will find itself yet again in the “Land of Milk and Honey” sales wise. Now when’s lunch?
via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette