DETROIT -- Pickup trucks were once again the two best selling vehicles in the United States during the 1988-model year, leading the five most popular models which were unchanged in ranking from 1987, automakers said Tuesday.
The F-series pickup truck, manufactured by No. 2 carmaker Ford Motor Co., took the top spot for the seventh year running, with sales of 588,452 for the 12-month period ending Sept. 30. Sales were up 12.9 percent on a daily selling basis from the 519,704 units sold in the year-ago period.
Chevrolet's pickup truck, manufactured by top automaker General Motors Corp., again took the second spot, with sales of 489,882 for the 1988-model year. Sales of the truck, redesigned extensively for 1988, were up 20.3 percent from 405,722 units sold during the 1987-model year.
Light-duty trucks, which include pickups, minivans and sport utility vehicles, accounted for about one of every three vehicle purchases during the 1988-model year -- about the same level as last year. Such vehicles have been selling in record numbers, viewed by buyers as popular alternatives to cars.
Ford's subcompact Escort held its position as the best selling car in the United States and the third best selling vehicle for the 1988-model year. Escort's U.S. sales totaled 381,330 units, but total deliveries were down 3.8 percent from the 394,999 copies sold during the 1987-model year.
Ford's mid-sized Taurus was the fourth best selling vehicle, unchanged in ranking from last year. Taurus' sales totaled 367,327 units, up 2.9 percent from 376,907 units for the 1987-model year.
Rounding out the list was Honda's Accord, which sold 362,118 copies during the 1988-model year. Counting both imported and domestically built versions, Accord's U.S. sales were up 7.1 percent from the 337,076 copies sold in the previous model year.
For the second year in a row, GM's Chevrolet division, once the nation's top selling nameplate as a whole but now replaced by Ford, failed to place a single car in the list of the five best selling vehicles.
Although Chevrolet's new Beretta coupe and Corsica sedan are advertised and registered as separate car models, the GM division counts them as one car line when it reports sales.
If counted as one model, Beretta-Corsica sales were 355,323 during the 1988-model year, ranking them, below Honda's Accord.
There were 308 selling days in the 1988-model year, compared with 307 selling days in the 1987-model year.
