Best. Best. Best.
Not only are Jeep vehicles winning all kinds of 'best of' industry awards this year, but they can’t stop setting sales records either.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Friday announced its Jeep Wrangler May sales jumped 26 percent over last May, marking the vehicle’s best May ever. It also was the third straight record sales month for Wrangler, which is now outselling every other FCA vehicle except for the Dodge Ram truck.
The Jeep brand itself rocketed up 29 percent in overall sales, also its best May performance ever, while Compass finished with another best – selling more than 17,000 units and increasing 223 percent.
All of this helped FCA to its best sales month since July 2005, and the automaker’s overall May retail sales even bested Ford. FCA pushed out 214, 294 vehicles during the month with overall sales growing 11 percent.
Most analysts pegged FCA growing about 8 percent for May.
That is a lot of bests.
"The summer selling season is off to a healthy start,” said Jeremy Acevedo, Edmunds manager of industry analysis, in a statement. “Despite rising gas prices, shoppers are clearly demonstrating their confidence in the strength of the economy as they continue to seek out larger, more expensive vehicles.”
Jeep Wrangler, with two current models on dealer lots, sold 25,102 units in May – growing 26 percent. The company has now sold 110,382 Wranglers in 2018; a 38 percent increase over last year at this point.
The company released its all new 2018 Wrangler ‘JL’ edition earlier this year, but still kept production going on its older ‘JK’ vehicle through April. Both models should continue to dominate sales through the summer until the JK versions sell through.
“Jeep has always represented the ultimate in capability and open-air freedom, and our all-new 2018 Wrangler protects that important legacy and takes it into the future,” said Mike Manley, FCA's Head of Jeep Brand, earlier this year. “The all-new Wrangler is instantly recognizable as a Jeep, staying true to the original, yet it is better in every way – delivering even more rugged capability, more ride comfort, more fuel efficiency courtesy of several advanced powertrain options, more interior comfort, more safety and more technology.”
The other good news for FCA and Jeep was Grand Cherokee’s May performance. The Grand Cherokee found itself back into positive territory, climbing 4 percent for the month. But the vehicle – one of FCA’s highest-profit editions – is still down 5 percent for the year.
Cherokee also continued to perform well for FCA, as the vehicle grew 63 percent and was the brand’s second strongest seller in May behind Wrangler. Like Wrangler, FCA redesigned its Cherokee for the 2019 model year and – so far – the changes seem to be popular to buyers.
In fact, nearly all Jeep-branded vehicles saw a sales increase for May with the exception of the discontinued Patriot and Renegade, which dropped 4 percent.
Once again, Jeep was the strongest performer in the FCA stable, with its 29 percent jump dwarfing all other brands based on total units sold. Alfa Romeo did climb 159 percent, but that was just off 2,377 total vehicles moved. Jeep is now up 21 percent for 2018 and could surpass a million vehicle sold this year if its hot streak continues.
Dodge (up 4 percent) and Ram (up 2 percent) did help out as well for FCA in May, while Chrysler (down 18 percent) and Fiat (off 46 percent) did not. The latter two brands also appear to be on the way out for FCA, as its latest five-year plan did not include those respective nameplates during a Friday presentation by CEO Sergio Marchionne.
Jeep, Ram and Alfa Romeo/Maserati look to be the majority focus for FCA moving forward, with the automaker aiming for one out of every 12 utility vehicles sold to be a Jeep by 2022. That figure was 1 out of 23 in 2009.
