TORONTO — Chrysler Canada says May was a good month for minivan sales, which represented a quarter of all vehicles it sold.
In total, Chrysler sold 20,877 vehicles of all types last month, a 53 per cent increase over May 2009.
But the number of minivans sold in Canada by Chrysler nearly doubled to almost 5,800 from just under 3,000 a year ago — good news for the hard-hit city of Windsor, Ont., which makes all of Chrysler’s minivans.
The North American auto industry has been recovering from last year’s severe downturn, which pushed Chrysler and General Motors into bankruptcy court in the United States.
Chrysler was among the first of the automakers to announce Canadian sales volumes for May.
Ford, the only one of the three U.S.-based automakers to avoid bankruptcy court or a government bailout last year, sold about 26,000 vehicles last month — up 19.3 per cent from 21,900 a year earlier.
However, the overall increase masked a decline in Ford car sales, which fell by nearly four per cent to just over 6,200.
Sales of Ford trucks, by contrast, were up 28.9 per cent to 19,900 from just under 15,450.
Honda Canada’s sales fell by 26 per cent from May 2009. Its Honda and Acura divisions sold a total of about 11,600 vehicles — putting it behind Hyundai.
Hyundai sold about 12,600 vehicles in May — a company record that was also 12.6 per cent above the same month last year.