Some models mix up November 2009's best-seller list -- see last month's top 20 new cars

  The Honda Civic compact car fell to the country's 10th-best selling
  car last month, and models from Ford, Nissan, and even Honda 
  itself filled the void. See the full best-seller list below the article. 
  (photo by Honda)

 The list of best-selling new cars last month saw several surprising changes to its normal ranking order after sales of the Ford Escape compact SUV took off and the Honda Civic economy car's slid sharply.

The Civic is typically one of the six best-selling vehicles in the country, along with with Honda's midsize Accord, the Toyota Corolla and Camry, and two large pickup truck lines from Ford and General Motors. The Civic's 13,652 sales last month dumped it to tenth place -- below the Nissan Altima and Ford Fusion midsize sedans and the Ford Escape and Honda's own CR-V compact SUVs. 

Further bad news for Honda: while its CR-V -- typically the best-selling SUV in the country -- saw strong sales in its own right, Ford did even better with the Escape. The Escape's sales jumped more than 50 percent compared to November 2008 and more than 20 percent compared to this October -- even as most cars saw a month-to-month decline -- and a whopping 74 percent improvement compared to this September. This increase vaulted it to seventh place on the best-seller list, from 13th in October and 16th in November, filling a space Ford had long occupied until mid-decade with its midsize Explorer SUV.

The Fusion sedan, fresh off major award wins from Car and Driver and Motor Trend magazines, is also new to the top 10 list for November, giving Ford three vehicles from that list (the third being the perennially top-selling F-Series pickup). 

Chrysler, however, continues to struggle; its Dodge Ram full-size pickup that had been the country's third-most popular vehicle earlier this decade saw that vehicle -- now rebranded Ram Pickup without the Dodge moniker -- fall below 10,000 sales last month, good only for 15th place. Similarly disappointing to its automaker is the 16th-place car that sells at the other end of the gas mileage spectrum; the Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid also failed to beat 10,000 monthly sales for the first time since April. 

On another note, troubling economic times are not keeping consumers from luxury cars. In October, BMW's 3-Series line was among the top-25 best-sellers; last month, the Lexus RX luxury SUV is in 21st place.

Compare last month's 20 top sellers to those of October 2009 in the chart below:

 More information: Sales figures by brand