Did
You Know ?
November
10 , 2001
Last week we received an inquiry from Paul
of Boise, Idaho.
Q.
I am interested in knowing
how many years Chevrolet was the sales leader of the automotive
industry and what years that was. I heard it was 75 years straight
until Ford took over in 1988
A.
In
1927 Chevrolet became the number one selling car company in the
United States. In 1929 and 1930 Ford won the sales race but Chevrolet
countered from 1931-1934 as the leader.
In
1935 Ford regained the lead in total cars sold, but not for long.
Chevrolet got the crown back in 1936 and never looked back through
1976...and several years beyond that!
(Editor's
Note: the Archives only covers history on Chevrolet for years
25 years and older, thus our last year of expertise that we chose
to cover is currently 1976.)
REVISION
6/20/02:
We made an error in our response to Paul's quation. Ford actually
won for the number sold of cars identified as 1957 models.
Chevrolet
sold 1,515,177 cars for the 1957 Model Year but Ford sold more.
We
incorrectly identified calendar year sales for 1957 and referred
to that number in our answer for this question.
When
it comes to cars sold during 1957 calendar year however,
Chevrolet won by a margin of 136 cars. According to Ray Miller's
Chevrolet - U.S.A.-1, Ford produced 1,522,408 1957 model cars
and Chevrolet produced 1,522,536. Possibly the closest production
battle ever!
Thanks
to several readers who caught this mistake and notified us of
the error. It is this sort of input that helps make the Vintage
Chevrolet Archives the most trusted resource for Chevrolet data
and information.
