European auto sales in February 2014 are up 3,6% when compared to February 2013, slowing down the year to date increase to 5,7% vs. the first two months of last year. The Volkswagen Golf is not surprisingly still the leader by far, actually increasing its lead over the number two, the Renault Clio, passing the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Polo to move up from fourth in January.
Notice the return of the Fiat Panda to the Europe top-10 at 8th place, leapfrogging its sister Fiat 500, which has outsold it for the past 8 months. It is also the first month of a year-over-year increase for the Panda, after a 14-month streak of decreases, since December 2012. In fact, the 2.800 unit lead over the 500 in February puts the Panda in the lead of the minicar segment Year To Date.
Another minicar with an excellent month is the Suzuki Alto, up 90% on last February. It’s noteworthy to mention this increase is fully carried by The Netherlands, where the Alto shot up from 562 sales and 15th place in February 2013 to first place and 2.279 sales this year. As a result, over 60% of all Alto’s sold in Europe this month were registered in The Netherlands. However, since this freak event is due to pre-registration of unsold cars, expect the Alto to tumble in the Dutch and also in the European ranking in the next months, until the arrival of its replacement, the Celerio.… Continue Reading …
Ferrari started this trend in 2002 when the Italians decided to name their supercar Ferrari Enzo. While the model’s two predecessors, F40 and F50, were named to celebrate the company’s 40th and 48th anniversary in 1987 and 1995 respectively, the Italians may have been a bit too quick with the development of their next supercar. It was already completed and ready to be sold in 2002, so the Italians must have called for an emergency board meeting during lunch time:
The German Big three BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have faced each other for the European luxury car buyer for decades now, and the fight isn’t limited to high-volume segments. The compact roadster / coupe segment has been a battleground as well, although the three brands have followed entirely different strategies for this segment. Each of the three manufacturers has been in the lead of the compact roadster / coupe category at some point in the past 16 years, since the introduction of the first Audi TT.
For example, more than three quarters of the Toyota stand was dedicated to the new Aygo, with more than 10 of these brand new city cars on the stand, and for the rest only one Yaris, an Auris hatchback and an Auris station wagon. A similar strategy was used by Renault, showing around 10 newly introduced Twingo minicars, three hot selling Captur small SUV’s, three Clio’s and a handful of Renault EV’s. No Scenic, no freshly facelifted Megane, no Laguna, Espace or Koleos.