I saw an article in the LA Times Business section about how the Big 2.5 are doing and how important truck sales are to profits. We all know that. What was interesting is the pie chart comparisons of market share, California vs the USA as a whole. Nationally, its Ford, Chevy, Dodge, GMC, Toyota, Nissan. With Ford at about 35 percent. Here it is Ford, Chevy, Toyota, others, with Ford at 38 percent. I dont remember the exact figures, but Chevy was lower and Toyota much higher than the national averages. This was for the 2006 model year. You hardly ever see a new Ram or Titan around here. Bottom line, Ford and Toyota up, the rest down. Maybe PB has different figures or can shed some light on this.

Jim

 

There was an article in the FTW paper a few weeks ago about the Texas truck market. As I recall, Ford was in the 30% range and GM and Dodge were both neck and neck in the low 20% range.

The fact that Ford leads GM surprised me because: 1) I live about 5 miles from the GM plant that used to make pickups (and still makes Tahoes, etc.); and 2) in the classic truck market, vintage GM trucks are more plentiful and command higher prices locally than Ford.

 

The last remaining auto assembly plant in CA, NUMMI in Fremont, near San Francisco, used to build Chevy and GMC pickups. It now builds Tacomas and Corrolas, with the same UAW workforce, I might add. Ford has sold better than GM in CA for the past 20 years or so. Another point the Times made is that CA and TX are, not surprisingly, the two biggest markets for pickups.

Jim