zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Trucks
/
The Truck Brand War Score: How GMC Won June 2015
The Truck Brand War Score: How GMC Won June 2015-July 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:19

GMC is the unexpected hero of truck sales for June 2015, taking GM way past Ford on pickups and enormous American SUV sales. Meanwhile the Chevy Colorado is still fighting an uphill battle against the Toyota Tacoma in smaller trucks.

We used to report monthly pickup truck sales with charts and graphs and nobody seemed interested. But part of me feels like this information is worth sharing... so we’re trying a more abstract approach. Let me know what you think!

The Honda Ridgeline gets its own category because there’s no more Subaru Brat or Dodge Rampage or, what’s that other one? Oh yeah; Chevy El Camino, anymore. This will also be the last time it gets its own category until the new one comes out because Honda sold seven last month.

Analysis: The next Ridgeline will be more of a legitimate mid-size competitor on capability. Honda only needs to stand out on economy to have a winner.

Chevy is very proud to report that their Colorados are selling quickly, staying on lots for “just 15 days” before somebody takes ‘em home. But even when combined with the twin GMC Canyon’s sales numbers, GM’s mid-size effort is still way behind the Toyota Tacoma.

Colorado did officially leave the Nissan Frontier in the dust, though. So it’s got that going for it. Which is nice. I still think the Frontier is a great little truck, that you can have with four-wheel drive, six-cylinders, and a five-speed manual by the way.

Analysis: Tacoma’s brand cachet is so strong that a competitor has be more than just better in an objective sense, which GM may have underestimated. That said, a 15 day turn is impressive... why would Chevy tolerate a production bottleneck if the Colorado’s selling so fast? Something seems off.

Chevy Colorado6,558
GMC Canyon2,532
Toyota Tacoma15,959
Nissan Frontier4,437

Ford F-Series kept a small lead over Chevy, although GM’s combined efforts with the Silverado and GMC Sierra blew their doors off by about 15,000 sales. Then again, Ford’s transaction price went up, so they’re selling fewer trucks for more money. The people have spoken; they want luxotrucks and .

Ram sales lagged behind a lot last month, but of course it still did about three times the Toyota Tundra’s performance.

The Nissan Titan was happy just to hit quadruple-digits in June.

Analysis: Increased demand for high-end trucks is going to be a thing. Ford’s proving it, and Ram and Chevy’s people have told me they agree. This is where the market’s going, how do you feel about it?

Chevy Silverado51,548
GMC Sierra18,618
Ford F-Series55,171
Ram33,332
Toyota Tundra9,926
Nissan Titan1,155

At this point there are way too many SUVs to fit into a chart any sane person would want to read or analyze, so for now we’ll keep it old-school between Ford and Chevy. Er, and GMC and Cadillac.

Ford’s eager to report that the Expedition outsold the Suburban last month, but the short story is GM still dumps all over the blue oval in full-size SUV sales. More than twice as many Suburbans, Yukons and Escalades got sold against Ford’s Expedition and Navigator variants.

Correction: I thought the Yukon beat out its Chevy equivalent but that’s only because I forgot about the Tahoe! Still, GMC seems to make up a bigger chunk of GM’s SUV portfolio than I’d have thought.

Analysis: The Expedition and Navigator’s 3.5 EcoBoost has a better torque curve than GM’s 6.2 V8 and they generally undercut equivalent GMs on price, but they’re just not as nice inside. And that means a lot to these buyers.

Chevy Suburban/Tahoe

9,188

GMC Yukon5,692
Cadillac Escalade2,514
Ford Expedition4,032
Lincoln Navigator999

Anyone care about how the few off-road oriented new vehicles sell in a given month? Genuinely asking here, because I’ll start writing it up regularly if you want to read about it.

With the Ford Raptor on hiatus, your options besides a few pickup variants are pretty much just Jeep Wrangler or Toyota 4Runner. And Jeep doesn’t just dominate this market; they sell twice as many Wranglers as Toyota sells 4Runners. Also about four times Nissan’s Xterra sales. (Oh yeah, the Xterra!)

Heck; there were pretty much as many Wranglers sold in June as all the vehicles in the “Big American SUV” category combined!

Also, there were seven FJ Cruisers and 158 Land Cruisers sold off Toyota lots in June 2015.

I’m excluding Land Rover here because it feels weird to compare them, or the Mercedes G-Wagen, to the Wrangler. Thoughts?

Analysis: Holy crap people love Wranglers. If there are so many being built, why the hell are they so hard to buy used?!

Jeep Wrangler19,159
Toyota FJ Cruiser7
Toyota 4Runner8,208
Toyota Land Cruiser158
Nissan Xterra4,437

Andrew P. Collins is Jalopnik’s off-road and adventure guy. Shoot him an email at or hit him up on Twitter to talk trucks.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Trucks
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
No square inch of the Northeast is safe from deer, as video out of New Jersey shows. A deer, tearing through the suburbs, managed to leap over a Pontiac Vibe and Honda CR-V before landing on the bedside of a 2007 Chevy Silverado — just as a prospective buyer arrived...
Jul 7, 2025
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
No car has ever driven at higher altitude than this 992-generation Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with portal axles. On Saturday the Porsche crew, led by racing driver Romain Dumas, reached the highest peak of the west ridge of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile, . That’s the tallest...
Jul 7, 2025
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
By definition, a big truck like a or struggles to be small. Even in its smallest, most trucky configuration — a two-door single cab — a full-size truck is relatively large and comes with a sizable bed for hauling cargo. But a small truck like the third-generation can do...
Jul 7, 2025
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
gets dunked on for letting models like the languish for years. But, the truck saw a model update well before the release of the , which is mechanically much like an with a design. Outside of the U.S., the successor to the second-generation Frontier came in 2014 with the...
Jul 7, 2025
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
Those who saw the meteoric rise of through the 2010s and onward probably associate the badge with the . The was Chevy’s halo midsize truck when it was released in 2016, but the ZR2 badging goes all the way to the when Chevy made the S-10 ZR2. It’s gnarly....
Jul 7, 2025
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
In addition to the all-electric , the truck brand announced this week that it will also release a engine gasoline-powered hybrid version of its electric pickup, called Ramcharger. The goal here is to use the V6 engine as a generator for the electric powertrain when the 92 kWh battery...
Jul 7, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved