Car sellers gain hope in June

Seffricans just luurve themselves a pickup,
as Ford Ranger again showed with its top sales in June.

In South Africa, the Bentley Bentauga sold three models during June, exactly the same as the Tata Xenon pickup, the Ford B-Max or the Subaru Impreza.
By comparison, Seffricans -- known connoisieurs of the pick-up -- bought  3333 Ford Ranger models, while Ford sent by road from its plant in Silverton a further 5631 Rangers overseas.
This made the Ranger SA's most popular vehicle overall among 55 brands on sale in a market that annually sells less than 0,7% of global vehicle sales.
This is the third month in a row that the Ranger took the title from Toyota, which company  exported
3642 Hilux models from its Prospecton plant near the Durban harbour and sold another 3161 Hilux in South Africa. Still, that is 121 Hilux bakkies a day, seven less than what Ford sold a day to the power-hungry South African.
This calls for 15 Hilux and 16 Ranger bakkies to be sold somewhere in South Africa every working hour, (assuming eight working hours). These are numbers the also-rans can't even dream about, as Tata showed with their three Xenon pickups sold. There are no flies on this Tata, (nor the Tata Bolt) but the Indian group, owner of Jaguar and Land Rover, is still trying to move past the dismal first impression the Tata Telcoline pickup and Indigo car made.

The Tata Xenon is exactly as popular a seller as the Bentley
Bentauga, which tells you all you need to know about Seffrica.

Seffricans next most popular bakkie is the Isuzu KB250, but due to vagaries of fashion, it is sucking a far hind sales tit, having sold only 1861 units in June. To be fair, these sales happened amid the announcement that General Motors will sell its Isuzu stake in South Africa to Isuzu in Japan as part of GM summarily closing shops in South Africa, (as it did in Oz and Europe), and KB buyers were holding off a bit.
Overall, June saw Volkswagen outsell Toyota with 15,318 units to 14,524 units, proving again that no-one is more forgiving than a car buyer.
While economist like Dawie Roodt cautions the ZAR is undervalued and "not a one way bet" despite junk rating and political shakeups on the southern tip of Africa, car buyers with an eye on the future clearly thought better buy now to avoid the increase in prices later.
As it stands, all new cars bought in South Africa in 2016 handsomely appreciated in value as the currency took a dive.