August's Fastest- and Slowest-Selling Cars

The Hyundai Santa Fe Sport topped last month’s fastest-selling cars — a list that mixed the usual influx of redesigns and introductions with a lot of older cars. The 2013 Toyota Corolla, Honda Fit, Mini Cooper, Audi A3 and Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen flew off dealer lots last month. All but the A3 saw sales increases, with the Corolla, Fit and Cooper up more than 25% apiece. But all five cars have been on the market for some time since their last update, and none offer major incentives. One possible factor is gas prices, which have risen 20 cents in the past month. All five cars have variants with combined EPA mileage of 30 mpg or better.

Response to the redesigned Hyundai Santa Fe has been “nothing short of remarkable,” Hyundai sales chief Dave Zuchowski said in a statement Tuesday. However, sales for the nameplate — whose redesign sprouts a new Santa Fe Sport derivative that’s lumped into the same sales figure — fell nearly 50% for the month. What gives?

“We sold down our 2012 inventory,” Hyundai spokeswoman Lori Scholz said. “We are just ramping up the production at the West Point, Ga., plant” that builds the Santa Fe Sport.

The roll-out appears to be going well. Cars.com shows more than 5,000 Santa Fe Sports in its national dealer inventory, and the redesigned SUV needed just four days on average to sell in August. It joins the Corolla, BMW 3 Series and Jeep Wrangler among August’s fastest-selling cars. Although the group included a number of models that were two or three years into their current guise, seven of the 16 fastest sellers were new or updated for 2013.

On average, new cars in August took 57 days to sell. That’s faster than July’s 63 days and August 2011’s 60 days. Unsurprisingly, incoming 2013 models averaged 15 days to turn while 2012s needed 85 days.

Here are August’s fastest- and slowest-selling cars.

August’s Movers

2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport: 4 days
2013 BMW 328i sedan (RWD): 6 days
2013 Toyota Corolla: 6 days
2013 BMW 328i xDrive sedan (AWD): 7 days
2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited: 7 days
2013 Lexus ES 300h: 7 days
2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK350: 7 days
2013 Mini Cooper hatchback: 7 days
2013 Audi A3: 8 days
2013 Honda Fit: 8 days
2013 Jeep Wrangler: 8 days
2013 Mercedes-Benz ML350: 8 days
2013 Scion FR-S: 8 days
2013 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen: 8 days
2013 Chevrolet Malibu: 9 days
2013 Mercedes-Benz C250 sedan: 9 days

August’s Losers

2012 BMW 135i convertible: 208 days
2012 Infiniti M35h: 206 days
2012 Infiniti M56: 194 days
2012 Mercedes-Benz S600: 193 days
2012 Mercedes-Benz S350 Bluetec: 193 days
2012 Porsche Cayman: 176 days
2012 Mercedes-Benz GL550: 175 days
2012 Nissan NV Cargo Van: 153 days
2012 BMW 328i xDrive coupe: 152 days
2012 Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet: 149 days

Cars.com Picks

About the List
We changed the headline of Movers and Losers earlier this year, but we’ll continue to call the lists themselves Movers and Losers. The Movers and Losers list reports the average number of days it takes to sell models from the day they arrive on the lot until the final paperwork is signed by a buyer. This is not a days-of-inventory list like you may find on other websites. We now focus on 2012 and 2013 model years.

For Movers, we only list vehicles that pass a certain threshold of sales in order to weed out limited editions, ultra-high-performance cars and others that might skew the numbers or otherwise inaccurately portray popularity. For Losers, we removed any threshold to reflect 2012 models that may have the greatest incentives.

Our Picks highlight cars that take a significant time before they’re sold and might be overlooked by shoppers. Dealers could be more motivated to sell these cars.

August's Fastest- and Slowest-Selling Cars

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