GM passes Toyota in 9-month globals sales

And the Toy Gallery is speechless.

You have a comparison of two different companies:

GM is a company only running on 6 of 8 cylinders trying to get the other two moving again.

Toyota is a 6 cylinder running wide open throttle at 110%.

If and when GM can fire off the remaining sales then they will leave Toyota in the dust for the foreseeable future. Toyota simply is at max capacity for a while while GM has a lot of excess capacity to fall back on.

Excess capacity or dead weight? Either way, use it or lose it.

No surprise here as GM is making a big comeback and Toyota has had quality issues. Also, most GM dealers are more ready to deal.

And that's news how? Having worked for a GM dealership, I can tell you they'e always ready to deal because nobody's lining up outside their showroom doors. Everybody's down the street at Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai.

Glad to see GM making a big turn around. From Caddy to Chevy, all the products are starting to reach standards the Japanese and Germans have met for years now...and in some cases surpassing them.

Also the new Malibu...and I really hate saying this cause I have hated the Malibu for quite some time now...looks alot better than the Camery.

Toyota better start producing some new products other than newer Prius's ('pri-i'...don't know the correct term for a whole bunch of those cars) There line up is becoming thinner by the day. The whole new corrola and matrix debuting in Las Vegas on holloween is enough to make sure I stay home and watch Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin instead.

If you take a good look at their car line up, it really only consists of 5 cars, none of which are sporty in the least:

1. Camery (Avalon, Solara and Camery all fall under this)

2. Corrola (which is being smacked around by its competitor the Mazda 3)

3. Matrix (I don't know anyone who buys these anymore)

4. Prius (at least you have a green car thats popular with Hollywood)

5. Yaris (is about as interesting as pond scum)

Come on Toyota. Bring us back to the heydays when AE86 were dynamic handlers, where the the Supra would walk away from Mustangs at a stoplight and where the MR2 was a fast turbocharged wedge of flying cheese.
Come on Toyota give us somthing to belive in again.

Would you buy a Supra now? They stopped building it just like Mazda killed the RX-7 and Nissan ditched the best Z car ever, because the market dried up and blew away.

The 350 is a partial return, but the RX-7 and Supra have to return. Let's not forget the Mitsu. 3000 GT.

I would buy a supra now...becuase I'm actually old enough to afford one ;-)

Nissan was smart when it created the 350Z because no other similar class of car was being produced in the US market at that time and it started pricing it at 26,000.00 just about the time that Gen X had become financially sound. The Last gen Supra and the RX-7 were pheonomenal cars...just a bit to early for the customers they were aiming at. Remember only those people with jobs in IT were commanding the huge salaries required to ship out 35,000.00. And most of them were not car guys. So when they went and bought expensive sports cars (35,000.00 was quite a bit back then) they went to BMW and MB.

And who could ever forget about the old diamond star and its american counterpart. AWD with a TwinTurbo. And the only one to come with a convertable (though it was heavy) I remember when Bee Racing put that car on the map.

If you're going to put the Avalon and Solara under the Camry derivative list, you may as well shuffle the Matrix with the Corolla as well. The Matrix is a Corolla wagon with different sheetmetal.

Spectator

"2. Corrola (which is being smacked around by its competitor the Mazda 3)

5. Yaris (is about as interesting as pond scum)"

U r talking sales right? So leave if one is intresting to u or not.Talk pure sales here.

and i doubt the Mazda 3 sells better than corolla or even half as much.

Yaris again is a top seller all over.

for more wait for the new corolla which is about to hit road shortly,new land cruiser (maybe it's not a big seller here in US but allover the world especially Asia it sells in tons)and many others to come.

JUGNU

JUGNU

There is a direct correlation between sales and desire...which is the connection I was making. Most people don't buy cars on the concept that this is the slowest most generic vehicle I could possibly buy. That dosen't drive people to show rooms. It's that car companies appeal with its vehicle line up that drive sales. Wether it be in huge rebates, phenominal warrenties or in the aspect every car commercial touches upon now (hell even minivans are getting in on this now...have you seen the recent commecial with the minivan carving through the mountain turns)...sportiness.

That's what helped raise Toyota to the top. It's sportiness. It had a supra, it had a celica, it had an MR2. But Toyota is not alone in this. Honda is falling into this problem as well...There is no NSX, nor Integra, nor any Type R in the US.

There is nothing to catch a buyers attention. No big name show stoper that says "people are going to snap there necks when this drives by".

The same thing killed oldsmobile and almost killed Buick which back in the day used to be known for fast rides. You don't produce anything to that gets peoples blood boiling, your market will drift away from you.

Nissan did it with the VQ powered cars. Mazda through the Mazdaspeeds. Cadillac is doing it with the CTS, Chevy with the Vette, BMW AUDI and MB have always done it, the Italians live through it and even Hyundai got a little bit of it when it redesigned it Tiburon.

So your right, I'm not quoting current sales figures of a specific model. I'm talking to future sales figures and what needs to change drastically in Toyo land to fix the fall off the top of the mountain.

I completely agree, Spectator. People aren't going to buy a Camry because it's a Camry... there needs to be something else, something special, to draw them into the showroom. Even Honda makes sportier cars than Toyota... Honda uses great engineering. You can't forget the S2000 or the Civic Si.

And JUGNU, stellar sales don't last forever if you have an uninteresting model line. The change will come... but if they want to prevent that from happening, Toyota has to change internally. Change their philosophy. Cars can be fun AND easy to live with! Look at Nissan, Mazda, VW!

Woah. Go GM.