The 2012 motor show will be heralded as the ‘best ever’ with 1.9 million people attending and 57,058 orders for new cars taken at the show. That is actually quite astounding when you think about it.
Of course with the floods of 2011, sales of new vehicles were down for the last three months of the year, and this will have spurred on sales for the first quarter of 2012. Figures are now available from the exhibitors, and the top sales day (8,537 units) was the final day of the show, April 8, with people realizing this was their last chance to pick up some of the bargain extras being offered for show purchases.
Chevrolet Trailblazer.
Easily top seller was Toyota with 12,694 orders, almost double the next best which was Honda at 7,539.
Third place went to Mitsubishi at 6,406 units, and I am sure many of those were the new Mirage eco-car, whilst Nissan was pushed down to fourth at 5,479 orders.
Isuzu sold very well in fifth at 5,007, well clear of Mazda at 4,117 and Chevrolet at 4,045 and Ford at 4,008. Isuzu, with only pick-ups and their SUV is a surprisingly good result over Chevrolet and Ford with their complete ranges of cars. Suzuki with 3,140 orders shows that eco-cars suit the current budgets.
Large drop to BMW (1,439) in 10th place and Mercedes-Benz (1,271), closely followed by Hyundai at 945. This does not surprise me at all as the Hyundai people are doing well all over the world.
Rolls-Royce.
After Hyundai, the sales figures for the rest of the manufacturers just fell away, with next best being VW at 181, outselling Volvo (173) and then a big drop to Lexus (118), Peugeot (109), MINI (105) and then SSanyong at 100.
Amongst the surprises was the fact that Mitsuoka (16) outsold Jaguar (12).
Others who did well (relatively) looking at their prices were Porsche (10), Lotus (5) and Lamborghini (4). Finally, Bentley did sell one example, but Rolls-Royce went home with the four cars they brought.
The main message from the figures was that whilst Toyota is still top dog, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Hyundai were the big movers.
