USA First Quarter 2014: Nissan Rogue & Subaru Forester hit record

The Kia K900 lands at #249 in the US.

* See the Top 261 best-selling models and Top 40 brands by clicking on the title! *

As is the tradition on BSCB, after exploring US March sales we now go into the First Quarter results in detail to try and extract longer-term trends. Thanks to a strong March score (+6%), the US market as a whole is up 1.4% on 2013 to 3.74 million units. Brand-wise, below an unchanged podium – Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, all declining – the big change is the access of Nissan in 4th spot thanks to sales up a very robust 11% to 323,745, passing Honda down 5% to 287,406. Jeep is up a huge 45% and goes from #10 brand one year ago to #7 this year! Subaru is up 22% to break into the Top 10 at #10, Ram is up 27% to #12, BMW up 12%, Lexus up 15%, Lincoln up 36% and Maserati up 331%.

Maserati Ghibli. US Maserati sales are up a whopping 331% so far in 2014.

It’s tough being at the top as far as the models ranking is concerned: 7 in the Top 10 lose ground year-on-year, including the Chevrolet Silverado down 8% in 2nd place. The Ford F-Series is for its part up 3% to 173,358 units, while the Ram Pick-up is up a fantastic 25% to 96,906 sales, going from #8 at the same time last year to #3. In spite of sales down 6%, the Toyota Camry remains the most popular passenger car in the country, shaking off the Nissan Altima (+3%) thanks to a strong month of March.

US Nissan Rogue sales are up 47% so far in 2014.

Other great performers inside the Top 20 include the Chevrolet Cruze up 12% thanks to its new diesel offering, the Toyota RAV4 up 28% and the Nissan Rogue up a splendid 47% thanks to the new model to reach a record 50,448 sales in 16th position. Reversely, the Honda Accord is down 14% and 4 spots to #8 and the Ford Focus down 16% to #16. Further down, the Subaru Forester takes off: up 67% to a record 35,390 units, the Mazda CX-5 and Nissan Frontier are both up 47% to #43 and #64 respectively, the Subaru XV Crosstrek is up 58% to #67, Nissan Juke up 71% to #75 and Acura MDX up 67% to #79.

The analysis continues below.

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Full 1st Quarter 2014 Analysis, Top 261 models & Top 40 brands Ranking Tables below.