Ram Tops Chevrolet in Full-Size Pickup Truck Sales, Now Second-Most Popular Behind Ford
Ram saw a sizable 15-percent increase in truck sales over the same period last year, helping it to catapult past Chevrolet and its new Silverado.
The American pickup truck hierarchy is a perennial predictability fest with Ford far outselling the others, followed by Chevrolet in second with Ram trailing to a distant third. This has, for years, been the case due to Ford's unwavering popularity here in the U.S. of A. which, in comparison, even dwarfs that of Chevrolet's clout among hard-working, middle-class folk. Now, though, there's been a switch up as Ram just trumped Chevy's sales numbers in the first quarter of 2019, placing it squarely as the runner-up in the full-size truck segment.
Ram made this leap by selling a reported 120,026 trucks through March, amounting to a 15 percent increase over the same period last year. This newfound success was complimented, at least from Ram's point of view, by Chevy's struggles as its 2019 Silverado 1500 hasn't been the sales boon it hoped for. In total, 114,313 of the GM-built pickups were moved during the first quarter—nearly 16 percent down from Q1 2018.
One factor to keep in mind is that when combining the Silverado's sales figures with its GMC Sierra sister model's, the two collectively outsold the Ram lineup, 154,859 units to 120,026. However, that's a technicality and, as far as sole model figures go, the Ram still landed on top.
Neither Ram nor GM was able to come close to Ford, though, as the Detroit stalwart dealt 214,611 F-Series pickups in total.
The majority of Ram's success can be attributed to the new 2019 Ram 1500, an increasingly popular and capable offering over the outgoing 2018 model which is still sold on dealer lots under the "Ram 1500 Classic" moniker. Despite our particular test model's over-the-top Laramie Longhorn spec, the current-gen Ram half-ton driven by The Drive's Jerry Perez was found to be a substantial improvement year-over-year with loads of refinement and convenience tweaks. The rest of the consumer truck market appears to share that sentiment with more buying into the Ram's offerings across its list of trims.
These marginal sales increases in the full-size pickup segment come despite a significant industry-wide price hike that has Americans paying 61 percent more for trucks than they did just a decade ago. As it's been discussed, that's apparently not enough to deter buyers as they continue to purchase higher-scale, well-equipped pickups that consistently nudge the $65k-$70k mark.
