Canadian registrations

Statistics received from a reader show how the Japanese are getting to grips with the Canadian market. Last year AMC sold 15,271, Chrysler 135,377, Ford 160,610 and General Motors 240,496 private cars. Of these AMC were down but the others showed an increase over the 1970 outputs. Of imported cars, Toyota sold 50,076, compared to 28,336 in 1970, Nissan/Datsun 45,100 against 32,086 in 1970, and Mazda 8,451, whereas in 1970 they sold 5,147 cars. British Leyland fell from 10,706 in 1970 to 9,412 last year, Ford Cortina sales fell from 11,277 to 6,867 hut they sold 4,633 Capris in 1971, Vauxhall sales were slightly increased, to 4,797, and Simca were up, as were BMW. Citroën, Fiat, Opel, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, but Peugeot and Renault sales fell slightly and VW lost 1,950 sales, although out-selling all but the most-successful Japanese makes, with 30,435 cars in 1971. Canada took a total last year of 745,026 cars, of which 175,500, or 23.6% were imports. Most popular GM model was Chevrolet, followed by Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Buick but the most popular single model was the Chrysler Valiant.