Trucks are big again, and other October 2009 new car sales results

November 4, 4:59 PMAutos ExaminerBrady Holt

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  A year ago, GM decided there was no future for big truck-based SUVs
  like its once-beloved and hugely profitable Chevrolet Tahoe. The 
  Tahoe's sales more than doubled last month compared to last 
  October. (photo by GM)

Full-size pickup trucks from Ford and General Motors once again grabbed the two best-seller positions last month, and most saw their sales rise compared to October 2008. 

With the post- Cash-for-Clunkers bust over and sales figures being compared to a period of slowdown a year ago, the auto industry is seeing numbers that look much more positive than those in months past. 

Of the six best-selling automakers in the U.S., five either saw small sales gains or effectively held steady compared to this time last year -- only Chrysler bucked the trend to shed a further 31 percent of its sales. 

And for almost everyone who sells them, large highly-profitable trucks are once more returning respectable sales figures. Only Ford and Chrysler saw their large pickup sales fall last month compared to October 2009, and GM even saw sales jump in the traditional large SUV segment that it effectively wrote off as dead last year -- sales of its Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, and Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV all saw double-digit sales growth, and sales of the Chevrolet Tahoe more than doubled to a respectable 7,738 units. At the same time, GM's line of four large car-based crossover SUVs all saw their sales increase, and the Chevrolet Traverse version is now the brand's no. 4 vehicle. 

See a list of last month's 20 best-selling cars below the article

Some smaller automakers fared even better than the Big Six -- Hyundai, Kia, and Subaru fared the best in the industry, each increasing sales by between 40 and 50 percent. Even more notably, these three were also the only automakers consistently doing well last year; they're not just springing back after a collapse in 2008.

Subaru is benefiting from a redesigned Legacy and Outback, Hyundai's compact Elantra took off during Cash for Clunkers and has remained one of its class's best sellers, and Kia's Borrego SUV saw its sales soar past the established Nissan Pathfinder and Toyota 4Runner to almost equal the Ford Explorer after months of nothing -- nearly half of this year's Borrego sales came in October alone. 

Other sales tidbits:

-The Chevrolet Cobalt compact car continues to struggle in the marketplace. Once a top seller, its sales have slid below its competitors from Ford, Hyundai, and Nissan to just 5,055 -- a big drop over an already poor September. 

-Honda already cut its sales forecast for its new 2010 Insight hybrid in half since the car went on sale in March, and unless sales increase dramatically, they'll still have less than half of even that volume. The rival Toyota Prius's higher gas mileage and stronger name recognition is trouncing the Insight's lower base price by a margin 13,000 to 1,700 sales last month. Meanwhile, the Prius fell on the list of the 10 best-selling cars in the country last month. (See a list of the top 20 below the article.)

-The GMC Sierra pickup -- a near-clone of the Chevrolet Silverado, the country's second best-selling vehicle last month -- sold nearly as many units as Chrysler's best-selling product, the competing Dodge Ram. 

-The BMW 3-Series luxury car is among the top 25 selling cars from last month, as is the to-be-discontinued Pontiac G6. 

-The Chevrolet Camaro continues to easily outsell its retro-muscle rivals at 8,082 units last month, compared to the Ford Mustang's 4,789 and the Dodge Challenger's 2,398. 

-Chrysler once again makes two of the three top-selling minivans in the U.S. The Dodge Grand Caravan leads the market segment with 9,020 units sold last month, and the near-identical Chrysler Town and Country lags only the Toyota Sienna among the competition with 7,164. Honda's Odyssey, which usually beats the Sienna and at least one of the two Chryslers, places fourth in the class with 6,783 sales. 

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

 More information: Sales figures by brand