How often does one see a driveway with the three best-selling sedans of 1992? Unfortunately, they’re not in proper order. Let’s take a quick look at the top ten selling cars of 1992, and then 2015.
The Accord had been the best-selling passenger car, and in 1992, the battle with the newly-revised Taurus was fierce. When the dust settled, the Taurus took the crown, 409,751 to 393,477. The new Camry, which was also quite pricey, managed all of 286, 602.The Taurus held the title until 1997, when the Camry started its long reign.
Of course, that’s just passenger cars; in 1992, light trucks already ruled the roost at the top; the Ford F-Series has been number one since 1982.
Here’s the top ten vehicles for 1992.
| 1 | Ford F-Series | 472,475 |
| 2 | Chevrolet CK | 428,514 |
| 3 | Ford Taurus | 409,751 |
| 4 | Honda Accord | 393,477 |
| 5 | Ford Explorer | 306,681 |
| 6 | Toyota Camry | 286,602 |
| 7 | Dodge Caravan | 251,921 |
| 8 | Ford Ranger | 247,777 |
| 9 | Ford Escort | 236,622 |
| 10 | Honda Civic | 219,228 |
And for 2015:
1 Ford F Series 780,354
2 Chevrolet Silverado 600,544
3 Ram Pickup 451,116
4 Toyota Camry 429,355
5 Toyota Corolla 363,332
6 Honda Accord 355,557
7 Honda CRV 345,647
8 Honda Civic 335,384
9 Nissan Altima 333,398
10 Toyota Rav4 315,412
I rented a very similar Camry many years ago, I was very impressed by how solid it felt. This was from a second tier rental company near the San Francisco airport, the Camry had over 70K on it. Considering that it was a rental for all of that time I was quite impressed. I’d take it before I would even think about the Honda or the Taurus.
The Accord has always been a better car than the Camry, it just doesn’t do fleet sales or large discounting like Camry.
The Accord also costs less to own due to higher resale value.
No the Accord of this era did not cost less to own due to higher resale value. Resale values that are often quoted are just wrong. The problem is that they calculate it based on MSRP and not actual transaction prices. So in this era it was the norm to find an ADP sticker on every Accord (and Camry). Meanwhile there were discounts to be had on the Taurus if you timed it right. So while the Taurus may have been worth $3000 less after a couple of years it cost $4000 less to purchase. You also have to figure in all the costs including maintenance, insurance, and the interest on the loan which was much higher at that time than it is now. In this era an Accord cost more to insure due to its higher theft rate, higher repair costs, and that “high resale” value. It also cost more to keep because when you hit that 12,000 mile mark and took it to the dealer you’d be faced with a $600-$700 bill for “scheduled maintenance” and the rear brakes.
In the real world if you were going to buy a car in 1992 and keep it for 5-7 years your overall cost of owning the Honda would not have been the lowest. If you kept it that long not only would you have been hit with $500-700 worth of maintenance every year you’d also get a $1200-$1500 bill in year 5 for 60K service which included the timing belt, water pump, cam seals, valve cover gasket, spark plugs ect. Meanwhile on that Taurus you’d be spending $150 per year until year 5 when you were hit with a $300 bill for its 60K service.
Thanks for taking the time to debunk the “Honda’s have high resale value” myth sir. I’ve known this for a while, but nice to see it clearly explained.
FWIW, when it comes to Fords (and the Japanese competition), he’s not objective. I suspect he gets a check with a blue oval on it each month. 🙂
Let’s not forget that the 3.8 V6 and automatic in these were among the worst units ever; pretty much guaranteed to blow.
And I suspect there’s a few former Accord owners that would take issue with his assumptions.
The fact is that in this era both Honda and Toyota dealers were charging more than MSRP and that preimum that people paid was not reflected in the %retained value calculations and conversely Ford and GM cars regularly sold for less than MSRP and that too was not calculated in %retained value.
When the Camry first hit the market it was a massive hit and dealers loaded on the ADP stickers along with manditory tru-coat and anything else they go do to boost profits. You also had to get on the waiting list most of the time and take what ever came in when you got to the top of the list, or go to the back of the line. So by they time the second year rolled around Toyota heavily advertised that a 1 year old Camry sold for something like 99% of its MSRP. Never mind that the few people selling their 1 year old Camry had paid more than MSRP some times much more.
I don’t know where you lived in 1992, but as “early” as 1988-89 when I went shopping for a new car my local Honda dealer did not have an additional dealer markup sticker on the new Accord 2 door coupe I looked at. Toyota dealers and Camrys? Yes? A lot of the ADP….business had to do with the area you lived in and how many dealers for that brand were within an hours drive.
As for those maintenance figures, I never spent a figure over 3 digits at my Honda dealer after I bought my car. Maybe other people did, and if they did they had only themselves to blame. “Shop prices” lead to many independent Honda repair shops, just like it did for VW in the late 60s and other imports….except Toyota (?) in the 70s-80s.
BTW, the 80s-early 90s were when Toyota and Honda built their best/most reliable cars….another reason why I feel your (inflated) maintenance costs for an Accord “don’t wash”. The higher insurance? Maybe. But oddly, I traded a GM product for my 1st of 4 Hondas, and the Pontiac I owned was nearly stolen twice thanks to it’s flimsy steering column lock, my Hondas? Never, even when I mistakenly left them unlocked.
He does make a reasonable argument. Where would a person go to verify any facts in the metal? I had a cumulative 14+ years at Ford Credit, and I will admit to a sense of personal pride that they didn’t give my pension a haircut like Chrysler did when they went BK. Some of my client dealers (when I was at Chrysler Credit) of 30 years and longer were unceremoniously axed, in one case right after doing a corporate “encouraged” remodel to the tune of $10 million. Ford retained their partners equity, Chrysler flushed it and got paid for doing it, too. My check from Auburn Hills was halved, but at least I am still getting one. Many were wiped out.
Nobody was paying that much for maintenance in the early ’90s. I had a timing belt and solid lifter BMW at the time, and my belt replacement, pump replacements, and valve adjustments were less than $400 including fluids and filters at the same time. Prices didn’t shoot up until ten years ago, and even then independents didn’t make the jump the dealers did.
I’ve worked as a service writer at an all-makes shop, and I’ve never met a good mechanic that would recommend anything other than a Honda or Toyota to someone that wants a dependable and durable car. The idea that Honda built their reputation on expensive maintenance is highly improbable. Ever notice how the same people that attack Japanese cars defend all sorts of junk by saying that it was incompetent servicing that gave their preferred brand of lemons a bad reputation? “SU carburetors are great! Incompetent American mechanics messed them up!” “Cadillac’s gas and Oldsmobile’s diesel engines would have been great with proper treatment!” Now we’re being told that the Accords that made GM and Ford cars synonymous with discount and fleets were wooden boats; dependent on elaborate maintenance by crews of trained technicians to get people to work? Color me incredulous.
Honda reliability in 92? Google Main Relay, Ignitor/ignition control module or distributor. Three reasons that many Hondas from that era were blocking the gate when I’d get to the shop. Well documented pattern failures that meant the car needed a tow. Head gaskets were also a very common repair on this era Honda and I did way more of them than in a Taurus.I also replaced way more engines in Hondas than any other brand that Cadillac and their wonderful 4.1. The Honda automatics were not dead reliable either, if it weren’t for the fact that the take rate on the AT for Hondas was relatively low they would have a reputation for poor AT’s in that era.
There is a reason that most any large metro area will have at least one if not a few Honda/Acura only shops. The only other brand that has a similar amount of independent specialists is Subaru. Funny you don’t find Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Chrysler or GM only shops. There are some BMW or Mercedes only shops and a few Mazda only shops left over from the days of the Rotarys.
Fact is that in the 90’s Hondas made me a ton of money and the only mfg that put more money in my pocket was GM.
If you wanted a car in this era that would go the long haul for the lowest cost and not leave you stranded the Honda was not the right answer. The Camry of that era was a far superior car in that and pretty much every respect.
There are independent service facilities for Hondas because their dealers are off the chart for sales per store. I worked at a dealership in 1989. We sold all brands of Mopars, Hondas, Oldsmobiles, Saabs, and Subarus. Hondas were flawless when they arrived on the carriers and we rarely saw them again. Customers paid a premium, which may also be why they had no loyalty to dealer service departments. We had five times as many Saabs in for service every day as we did Hondas, and we sold less than a tenth as many Saabs. Oldsmobiles and Mopars needed careful inspection and correction of flaws before they could be delivered to customers. They came in with more problems than Hondas had in the hands of their first owners. 1986 Accord DX 4-door sedans had weak rear brakes that needed frequent replacement and…that was it for patterns of issues of Honda cars that were still in their dealer service years in 1989. I remember a 1985 Accord SEi with an automatic that shifted as badly as a Lincoln Towncar with 100,000 miles, but it had lots of miles and had clearly been abused. First generation Accords and Civics both had their share of teething troubles, although they were already better than most of their contemporaries from Detroit. The second generation cars and later would be fine until their vacuum hoses rotted, and then it just took lots of patience to tediously replace the hoses one by one.
I still see early ’90s Accords in beater condition. If they’re shop rats, those are some committed owners. I know someone that still had a 1991 Accord they bought new until it was rear ended a couple years ago. It would have been gone in a few years if it gave them any trouble worth mentioning. They still have their 1994 Accord, although it doesn’t get driven much in favor of their newer Hondas.
Ford Tauruses seemed like very popular cars when they first came out. I had a coworker in 1995 that had a first generation Taurus wagon. She was regaling me with horror stories about it when I realized I didn’t see them around much anymore. I’ve probably noticed every pre-facelift Taurus I’ve seen since then, and it hasn’t been all that many considering how well they sold. Oval Tauruses have been gone for years now too. I still see a few of the last mid-sized Tauruses, but they’re clogging the self-service parts yards today, gone tomorrow. Has anyone seen a Contour since 2010? Why are there just as many old Dodge trucks still on the road as Fords? Old Chevy trucks are everywhere; so common that they’re invisible. Every year or two I see a Ford truck like my favorite science teacher bought new in the ’80s. There’s a reason someone said Ford stands for Found On Road Dead, and someone else said, no it does not! It stands for Fix Or Repair Daily. I’ve never heard anything similar about Honda.
As a guy who has owned both 80s-90s Fords and 80s-90s Hondas, I find the truth somewhere in the middle. The Fords were good cars, but my experience was a higher rate of part failures as the car got older. And I put quite a bit of money into my 94 Club Wagon for its first 80K miles, including multiple sets of ball joints and a steering gear.
The Hondas have higher “regular maintenance” costs but the Fords had higher “unexpected repair” costs – and these were the good ones like the E series van and the Panther. I found that Honda components like power lock actuators and such to be sturdier than the stuff that Ford was using.
I’d love to know what these $500-$700 per year maintenance costs were! We had a ’91 Accord in the family for 8 years, and other than one major repair (the AT did have to be rebuilt when the car was 16 years old with about 170K miles) it was basically flawless mechanically. Yes, we did have the timing belt done around 180K and that wasn’t cheap, but it’s an interference engine. There are a lot of them out there, or at least there were in the 90’s.
Also agree that one sees quite a few Accords (and Camrys) of this generation still on the road. Not so with the concurrent Taurii, which are getting quite rare.
Old Hondas are great buys if you can flip a rusty ol’ banger, otherwise dont see how they’re so “superior”, any old beater can be a cheap/expensive car after 20+ years.
Out here older Cieras and Centurys are more common, they’re certainly inferior cars to Accords, but that just shows you how much ownership history means vs a cars origin, model, etc.
We dont have very many Honda-only shops, maybe one small one thats rarely occupied.
Down the street from me there are at least 2 older Tauruses still going, there was a third abandoned one, several rusty 2nd-gen Camrys, I only ever see one Accord (and its just driven to the DMV and back).
Whoa, for a second there I thought I was looking at my own ’92 Camry in the middle! It’s my daily driver, same color, but no sunroof. Actually, here in California there are lots of gold 92-96 Camrys still on the road. Mine is pushing 180,000 miles and it still feels very solid!
96 gold v6 le camry here pushing 200,000 miles and running like a top. Best car i ever hung on to. Can’t say much about the maintenance cost because i do timing belt e.t.c myself and only parts costs is quite reasonable. Definitely better than the Accord.
Wow. Does the UAW-3 make cars anymore? I read that Fiat is going to kill the Dart and 200, which suggests that surrender is imminent.
I’m not sure what you mean by “surrender.” Is there an actual war being fought here? Who is the enemy?
Ford and General Motors make plenty of cars, some of which are (gasp!) produced by the UAW right here in the United States. Fusion, Focus, Cruze, Malibu, Impala, Taurus. Most of those perform well in their respective segments, and if they don’t its likely because of low gas prices more than anything else.
Even if Ford and GM stopped making cars (which is doubtful) both companies produce competitive crossover vehicles in almost every size category. The Explorer and Edge are selling very well, and even though they’re a bit dated, the Traverse and Equinox are largely doing the same. We don’t even have to mention pickups or work vans, do we?
No one is “losing” anything. Quite the opposite is happening right now.
Don’t forget, there are no compacts in the top 10 but the compact-car segment is one of if not the most competitive in the whole industry.
I also wonder where the domestic pickups would sit if they didn’t have high-spec half ton crewcabs and diesel HD 350(0)s including chassis-cabs lumped together under the same nameplate.
Corolla at #5 with 363K sales and Civic at #8 with 335K. Unless you don’t consider it a compact anymore? If your definition of compact is Fit/Yaris/Sonic (which are probably similar in dimensions to the Civic/Corolla of ’92), those guys probably aren’t anywhere near the top 10.
I thought he meant the Focus, Cruze and Dart don’t appear in the top 10.
Is “UAW-3” a term you coined?
Ford and GM have the strategy of making and selling vehicles that are the most profitable per unit for them, CUVs, SUVs, cross-overs and full size trucks. Fighting for pennies on low margin econoboxes is best left to the Asian makers.
Did the Asians or Europeans ever make a full size truck? Maybe a caravan of Ridgelines and Titans would be best to carry the white flags.
UAW-3 suits the delineation between brands favored and unfavored by jingoists better than ‘Big-3’ or ‘Detroit-3.’ Toyota would belong in the Big-3 now, and the UAW-3 make fewer of their passenger cars on US soil than Toyota or Honda. Canada is counted as part of the US for ‘domestic content’ calculations, solely because they have unionized plants building GM, Ford, and Fiat cars. Fiat isn’t even pretending to be a US owned or incorporated company, so they don’t have a claim to defining the ‘Blank-3’ other than that they employ the UAW. How many of the cars allowed to park in Detroit’s apartheid parking lots were made in Mexico? And how many of the cars that aren’t welcome were made by Americans who don’t favor politics that are an affront to every one of our war dead of the past hundred years? So that’s why GM, Ford and Fiat are the UAW-3. Maybe someday they won’t be, but I suspect it will be through attrition.
I keep reading this comment to see if it will, eventually, make sense, or at least some reasonable facsimile thereof. I’m going to infer, based on your user name that you live in San Diego and not Detroit (or Michigan for that matter). Having lived in the Mitten my entire life, I am intrigued by these “apartheid parking lots” of which you speak. Hyperbole much? In any case, I don’t recall Nelson Mandela mentioning them when he visited the Motor City in 1990.
In addition, I really cannot fathom what the following comment means: “And how many of the cars that aren’t welcome were made by Americans who don’t favor politics that are an affront to every one of our war dead of the past hundred years?”
Perhaps you’ve never heard the term “Arsenal of Democracy,” which many historians have applied to Detroit and it’s efforts in WWII. Of course, Michigan and the entire nation contributed to that effort, including UAW members. I guess I didn’t know that the efforts of UAW auto workers were such an “affront” to our war dead. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I visit my grandfather’s grave, who was both a proud UAW tool and die man and a WWII pilot. Or my grandmother’s grave-she worked in Lansing’s Oldsmobile plant making shells during WWII and was also a proud UAW member.
Thanks for the education.
Forget it, J. It’s CJ.
FCA (Fiat)’s surrender may be imminent…within five years, but I’d chalk that up to gross mismanagement. Jeep will survive in some form or another. The rest will be missed, but bluntly, can be done without.
Ford and GM have got it goin’ on. Neither are perfect but both build viable if not superior entries compared to their Japanese/Korean counterparts.
It’s not 1992 or even 2005 anymore.
Yes Jeep will live on to kill or almost kill the next company lured in by its reputation.
How has jeep killed or almost killed the companies that have owned it? AMC and Chrysler were both pretty lucky to have strong Jeep sales during their ownership. Care to put some facts with your random pot shot?
Where are Willys, Kaiser, AMC, Renault and Chrysler now? Willis, Kaiser and AMC are of course long gone. Renault got smart in time before it did too much damage. The Chrysler take over almost killed Daimler and they tried for a long time to ditch the mess before they found a sucker in Cerebus. It didn’t last long until we the people had to pay Fiat to take the mess off our hands. Now after only a short time FCA is ready for it’s own death watch.
So Willys, Kaiser, AMC and Chrylser have all died, although heroic efforts did sort of bring Chrysler back from the dead for the time being anyway so that Jeep can kill Fiat too.
So yes the short term profits were nice but the facts are that no one who held onto Jeep for any length of time survived. Jeep is cursed and while those profits look good in the short term, no one who has held Jeep for long has lived to tell about it.
Eric: Sorry, but you have it ass-backwards. All those companies wouldn’t have lived as long as they did without Jeep. If it hadn’t been for Jeep, they would have all died a lot sooner.
I don’t ascribe woo-woo qualities to brands and companies. I prefer to look at things a bit more rationally. No brand is “cursed”.
If those companies had spent money on their own products instead of on Jeep they just might have survived.
Fact is that no one who has had Jeep as part of their portfolio has done well in the long run.
Looking at these numbers you can see the impact of the Nasser era at Ford, with the decision to de-emphasize cars in favor of higher margin trucks. Can’t say that strategy worked out to well for them, given that they only have one vehicle in the top 10 for 2015, versus 5 on the list in ’92…
Those 1992 numbers also show how appealing Ford’s vehicles were before the Nasser-era cost cutting that turned most Ford lines into rental fodder. It was pretty impressive to grab 5 out of the 10 best selling models. I had forgotten how sickly the other US brands looked in comparison then.
I don’t think how many vehicles a company has in the top 10 is as important as overall units sold. In that regard GM and Ford are 1 and 2 overall for 2015.
So, regardless of strategies and number of vehicles on the top ten list, GM and Ford still outsell all others
True, but in 1992 GM’s marketshare was ~34% (spread over 7 divisions) and Ford had ~26% of the U.S. market (spread over 3 divisions), so the intervening years have not been kind. Also from an efficiency and profitability standpoint, those Ford top selling vehicles were very useful to them. Irrespective of their total market share, I am sure Toyota is very pleased with having 3 cars in the U.S. top 10–over a million units from three nameplates is impressive–and knowing Toyota it is also highly profitable. I imagine Ford would go back to those 1992 results in a heartbeat if they could…
’92 was also something of a serendipitous year for Ford’s position on this list. The F-series was refreshed for ’92, the Taurus was a new generation for ’92, and the Escort had been a new generation for ’91. Of course the Ranger still managed a #8 showing in its final year of an old generation, so…
The 1992 96 generation of Camry’s are all but extinct in Upstate, NY. Seeing one is a very very rare event. The 90’s Accords are a little more plentiful but I still see far more Taurus/Sable cars of this generation, trans axle and Essex V6 grenades be damned.
But everyone knows that the Taurus is un-reliable and will die before it reaches 100K while an Accord or Camry will go 300K with only oil changes and tire replacements.
Here we go again.
My father owned 3 Tauruses, ALL saw the other side of 100K miles, and his last one was still running decently when we sold it for nearly $2,000 last year. Oh, yeah, that Taurus has well over 200K miles on it.
Were those 3 cars “perfect”? No. All 3 had the very STURDY Vulcan 3 liter, and were never rebuilt. The transmissions on the other hand, usually needed rebuilds somewhere between 60K and 110K miles…..a $700-$800 repair.
And my 80 something father kept his cars clean, so the only Taurus he owned that rusted was bought used.
Scoutdude was being satiritical indicating the percieved superiority of an Accord or Camry vs. a Taurus. Or maybe not? I can never tell sometimes.
Yes I was singing the CC song in jest The Taurus was a good car and quite durable overall. Personally we put over 150K on ours and the trans was still going strong. We only got rid of it because there were a lot of things that were coming due soon (tires, battery and brakes) and it had some light body damage that we had taken the insurance money and didn’t get fixed. Sold it cheap to a friend of my wife’s that was in desperate need of another car. Over two years and ~20K more miles and it is still going for her the last I heard.
I see lots of them every day here in mass, nothing seems to kill them not even rust.
Complete opposite here in Toronto Canada. The 90’s accord sightings are a rarity.
In 1994 the Ford Taurus continued as the “best-selling car,” a spot it would hold through the 1996 model year.
I still own a 1994 Ford Taurus GL sedan in Performance White. It was the biggest-selling car for 1994, and that was the most common color. Less often now, but very frequently in years past, we would see its near-twin in a supermarket or mall parking lot and sometimes, just to be ornery, I’d park right next to it. Ours was a daily driver, with unusually low miles because it was used as a commuter car by my wife…1 1/2 miles each way. Since she retired, I drive it mostly now, since I prefer its handling to that of the Generation 4 Ford Taurus. The 1994 feels lighter, more nimble.
Something else about that 1994 Taurus: it has a blue interior, which is refreshing. Our other cars (except the 1963 Corvette) are all in the mousy, common grey that is just about the universal interior color these days.
There are a LOT more Generation 2 Taurus/Sable around here, safe from the rust bug, than same-year Camrys. I think there are also more Accords than Camrys, which may be because they are popular with street racer wannabes. And most of the early-1990-vintage Camrys appear to be clapped out and on their last legs.
Yeah for interiors in a real color, I wish they would make a return.
Around here the Camry of this era is probably the most common while a lot of the Accords have been riced to death or near death and frequently are smashed here or there. Often times you’ll see one that got aftermarket or junk yard front end sheet metal that has been smashed in the front again. The Camrys, seem to be in the best condition of the big three from the early 90’s around here.
I see so many smashed up Honda noses I have to wonder if its the driver, or some sort of defect?
Its well known how difficult it can be to change the brakes of an Accord of that time,
Just last week we had an Accord river that took out severl fences, a fire hydrant, and finally stop at some trees, all because “I was looking for my cigarette pack”.
One thing to notice is how much higher unit sales have to be to break into the top 10 in 2015 verses 1992.
Interesting also how much the volumes on the already high full size pickups have gone up. I bet when the Ranger and the S-10 were designed, it was thought that they would be the big volume trucks by the nineties. Only the Ranger is on the 92 list.
The Ranger sales did grow for a few years after 92 before starting into the long slow slide that lead to it getting the ax.
The interesting thing is comparing the 2015 F series numbers to the 92 F-series plus Ranger numbers. Pretty darn close and you can bet the average profit per vehicle on the 2015 F series is much higher than that on the 92 Ranger both on a Gross profit percentage and absolute profit per vehicle. Yes some of that is due to the fact that you can now get a F-series with a lot more equipment than in 92 and a much higher percentage of the vehicles going out the door are higher end models.
This. In 1992, the highest trim level of an F-150 (Eddie Bauer) was roughly comparable to a modern XLT (mid-range). Everything higher than that was introduced in the 20+ years since.
“One thing to notice is how much higher unit sales have to be to break into the top 10 in 2015 verses 1992.”
That is interesting, something similar has happened in the Australian market which makes sense since total sales have doubled since 1992. However the highest-selling cars sell much fewer units than in 1992, 67,000 for the Ford Falcon in 1992 versus 42,000 for the Corolla last year. Position 10 was 9,600 in 1992 (Mitsubishi Lancer), last year was 22,000 (VW Golf). Just four cars appear in the top 10 list for both years, Toyota Corolla, Camry and Hilux and the Holden Commodore.
Scottdude has a point about depreciation numbers being calculated from MSRP while the right number would be actual selling price.
However, I can say he is delusional if he thinks that a mid 90s Taurus is anywhere near the Camry or Accord in quality. I dont care how many asthmatic Vulcan powered Tauri he sees in his commute.
Actual reliability data (read non anecdotal info) says Toyota and Honda made and still make the most trouble free cars. Its not a conspiracy, its not bias.
I’ve owned all 3 of the above, and all were pretty reliable. But the Taurus was undeniably cruder, less precisely assembled, and the data will tell you – more likely to need repair.
don’t want to start another war here but being a mopar fan I have to point out 1992, top sellers, ford and gm trucks.
2015 top sellers, ford, gm AND dodge trucks!
go ram!! 🙂
Yes, Ram is the real success story in that 92 vs 15 comparison. It did take a few years but they went from pretty much an insignificant blip on the sales charts to 3rd place, and in this context 3rd place isn’t too bad at all.