Whatcom County dealers sold 198 new cars in August, the slowest month so far in 2011.
According to Cross-Sell, which tracks car sales by gathering data through the Washington State Department of Licensing, Toyota was the top-selling make in August with 38 new car sales, followed closing by Ford (37 sales), Kia (34) and Chevrolet (30).
The peak month so far in 2011 was in April, when nearly 400 new cars were sold locally. August was the first month of the year dealers didn’t reach 200 sales.
Through the first eight months of the year, Wilson Motors has sold the most new cars locally with 349, followed by Northwest Honda (265 sales), Rairdon’s of Bellingham (224), Smith Kia (202) and Dewey Griffin (174).
It would be interesting, and informative, to know how these monthly and yearly sales figures compare with previous years going back to before the current recession. Perhaps, a graph going back to 2006 would be revealing.
Well, it’s really hard to sell cars when you don’t have any inventory. We’ve been looking to buy a new car and the dealers in Whatcom County just are not being shipped any cars.
Hi Todd2,
We try to put together those bigger-picture, year-over-year articles in January/February (after the year-end numbers are in).
I can tell you that in 2007/early 2008, new car sales were generally in the 350-400 range each month. The five-year peak was in May 2006, when 553 new cars were sold.
Hi John,
I’ve been hearing that with Japanese makes… are you seeing it for all the dealers?