June Auto Sales Strong Despite Shaky Economy

June was good to the auto industry as a whole this year, with Toyota boasting 60 percent sales gains and the Detroit 3 advancing despite a shaky economy.

Toyota’s gains were tied directly to strong sales for the Prius family, the Camry and Corolla which in total accounted for more than 86 percent of the brand’s car sales last month, including its Scion subsidiary. Though this is hardly a surprise, the big winner within Scion was the hotly anticipated FR-S sports car, which outsold every other model in its first month of delivery.

Honda did well last month too, though it didn’t see the same gains as Toyota. The brand’s Accord sedan sold extremely well, though, with 84.1 percent better sales than this time last year, or more than 26.4 percent of the company’s unit sales overall. Things were good for Acura too, though not as much as they, or we, would have expected.

The brand’s ILX entry-level luxury sedan posted its first sales results with disappointing numbers. Before the car launched, Acura said it expected somewhere in the ballpark of 3,300 units to sell in an average month, but only managed to move 1,081 units. Still, sales were good thanks to strong demand for the MDX and RDX utility vehicles which made more than half the brand’s total numbers.

GM sales were up 16 percent and strong across the board, allowing the brand to report its best month since September, 2008. At the same time, Chrysler reported a 20 percent sale increase, though the same consistant strength wasn’t there.

Dodge did very poorly last month, only reporting a 2 percent gain to bring up the rear. Meanwhile, Fiat actually enjoyed a smashing success, selling 4,004 units where only a few months ago it was struggling to sell 1,200.

Finally, Audi set an all-time U.S. sales record last month with a 26 percent increase. The company can thank sales staying strong for its A4 and A5 sedans as well as the Q5 crossover, but the car that really put them over the hump was probably the A6 with an almost 227 percent sales increase over last year.