One Lion rises, another falls

HIGHLIGHTS:

May was up almost 18,000 sales on April, but down 2.1% on the same period last year. SUVS drove much of the month’s momentum with mid-sizers including the Mazda CX-5 (up 38%) and Mitsubishi ASX (up 19%) firing with buyers. Peugeot had a strong month showroom-wide – its 230 sales up 50% and led by the 3008 (125 sales, up 49%). Audi’s A4 bounced back from a poor April, claiming 194 buyers (up 81%), while VW’S Arteon (74 sales, up 90%) had its best month since its October 2017 launch.

LOWLIGHTS

Few brands had a bad month. Porsche fell 16% as the model changeover for new-gen Cayenne (18 sales, down 44%) had an impact. Holden slipped another two spots despite a 12 percent rise over April’s result on stronger Commodore (1040, up 77%) and now-discontinued Spark (123, up 180%) sales, as Captiva (370, down 29%) and its newer Equinox SUV sibling (428, down 15%), weakened. Ford’s transition to the MY18 Mustang saw sales fall 30% to just 267 for the month, the lowest since its December 2015 launch.