Richmond Hill, Ontario – The Honda Civic and Ford F-150 topped Canadian passenger car and light-duty truck sales in September, according to industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers.

“In the automotive sector, product is king, and each OEM and indeed each platform has a specific cadence which defines its performance,” DesRosiers said. “You see it very clearly when looking at the performance of specific models.” Almost without exception, DesRosiers noted, products that have been recently renewed, such as Matrix, Corolla, Elantra and Mazda3 are performing quite well, while older products such as Yaris, Ranger, Accord, Civic and Caravan “are underperforming relative to their competitors.”

DesRosiers noted that the subcompact car market was down 27.9 per cent in September 2009, compared with September 2008, and down 25.9 per cent year-to-date, while large/luxury/sport vehicles were up 4.1 per cent in September, and were down only 6.4 per cent year-to-date in a market that is down 14.3 per cent.

The top ten best-selling cars in September were, in order, the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Mazda3, Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Matrix, Hyundai Accent, Nissan Versa, Ford Focus, Toyota Yaris, and Honda Accord.

Year-to-date to the end of September, the top ten were the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Mazda3, Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai Accent, Toyota Yaris, Ford Focus, Toyota Matrix, Nissan Versa and Ford Fusion.

The top ten best-selling light trucks in September were, in order, the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, Dodge Ram, Dodge Caravan, Hyundai Santa Fe, Ford Escape, Toyota RAV4, Ford Ranger and Toyota Venza.

Year-to-date to the end of September, the top ten were the Ford F-Series, Dodge Caravan, Ford Escape, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Silverado, Dodge Ram, Toyota RAV4, Hyundai Santa Fe, Ford Ranger and Honda CR-V.

A total of 67,469 passenger cars and 62,034 light trucks were sold in September.