Junk, junk, and a few decent ones thrown in for good measure. While our GMs and Fords have gotten better, the Dodges still stink, with the possible exception of the Dodge caravan.
Best I can figure from watching a bit of Top Gear, the estate car (station wagon) is not very popular over here, but it is quite popular in Europe. There is an abundance of fuel hating small hatches and cars with diesels, while over here, only the hot hatches come stateside, and the diesel option is nearly nonexistant. In the passenger car category, the number of diesel options is (off the top of my head) less than 10 models. The lorries (semis) and many of the heavy duty pickups can get away with having diesel engines if their weight rating is high enough to exempt them from EPA testing for the most part. Passenger cars and light trucks with weight ratings less than 5000 lbs (?) have to follow stricter guidelines than the big stuff. We also have tons more MPVs (minivans), and it would seem take the place of the estate car over here.
We have an abundance of pickup trucks, and minus the diesel options, the Toyota Hilux is one vehicle that seems very similar to our Toyota pickups here. The Ford Transit has just recently started coming over here, and the Mercedes Benz sprinter has been here since 2001 and has seemed to be very popular for its efficient engines.
We have almost no Renaults, Peugeot, just a handful of VW, Mercedes is considered a luxury brand accross the line, there are almost no Alfa-Romeos, Masserati is rare, as is anything from British Leyland. Nissan and Mazda are quite popular over here, much more so than what I can tell in the UK, and Toyota is quite popular as well. However, the Nissan Skyline is considered an exotic, and is rarely seen outside of the uber-rich groups. Same goes with Ferrari, Lambo, Aston Martin, and to an extent BMW, which is considered a luxury brand. If you wanted to buy a cheap 30 year old Porsche you'd almost be out of luck stateside.
I found a
breakdown of us auto sales by brand, and gist of it is
GM 19.8%
Ford 17%
Toyota 14.3%
Honda 10.8%
Chrysler 9.4%
Nissan 6.6%
Hyundai 5.2%
Kia 3.2%
Subaru 2.2%
VW 2.1%
Mercedes 1.9%
Mazda 1.9%
All those less than 1%
Audi, Volvo, Mitsubuishi, Suzuki, Porsche, Isuzu, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Maybach.
51.2% of light vehicles were cars, 48.8% of light vehicle were trucks (which I assume includes SUVs)
Keep in mind this is simply vehicle sales for last year, but I suspect it is close to accurate for the car population as a whole. Isuzu was the only real suprise, as they used to sell a lot of trucks once upon a time. And how Nissan is behind Chrysler is beyond me, unless it is because they last so long their faithful buyers don't need a replacement as often.
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