Even though everyone and their dog was looking forward to the redesigned Tacoma, the previous generation proved hugely popular in 2023, besting all other mid-size pickup trucks in terms of sales. According to the sales report published by Toyota USA, the Japanese automaker delivered a whopping 234,768 units last year versus 237,323 units in 2022.
GM put up a good fight with the Chevrolet Colorado, which clocked 71,081 deliveries compared to 89,197 in 2022. It's not clear why Colorado deliveries fell by more than 20 percent, although we do know that General Motors parked a helluva lot of trucks at the Wentzville factory. Be it supply chain- or quality-related difficulties, GM never bothered explaining.
The technically similar GMC Canyon recorded 22,458 sales compared to 27,819 in 2022, representing a change of -19.3 percent. All told, the largest automaker of the Big Three in Detroit tallied 93,539 mid-size pickup trucks in its home market last year.
The following entry is the V6-exclusive Nissan Frontier, which features a nine-speed automatic produced by Nissan subsidiary JATCO under license from Mercedes-Benz AG. The Frontier also fell dramatically from 2022, with Nissan reporting 58,135 deliveries compared to the previous 76,183.
Jeep dealers had plenty of trouble moving the Gladiator, hence the Wrangler-styled truck's abysmal performance in 2023. As per the sales report published by FCA US LLC, the Gladiator sold 55,188 units compared to 77,855 in 2022, which is -29 percent worse. Nobody had it worse than FoMoCo, though, with the Ford Ranger falling a simply ludicrous -43.3 percent from 57,005 to 32,334 units.
Photo: Toyota
It's quite curious how the Ford Motor Company, which prides itself on building America's favorite truck and hybrid trucks in the form of the F-150 PowerBoost and Maverick Hybrid, could mess up the new Ranger's launch this badly. Slotting right between the Ranger and Gladiator, the Honda Pilot-based Ridgeline posted the largest improvement in the segment (52,001 versus 42,762 or 21.6 percent).
The Ridgeline isn't considered a proper truck by quite a few peeps due to its unibody construction, but then again, many customers prefer the dynamic qualities and comfort of unibody over body-on-frame construction. Something that's a bit hard to swallow is the $39,750 starting price (sans destination charge), which is roughly the same kind of money that GM wants for the 2024 GMC Canyon Elevation 4WD.
The Chevy is far more reasonably priced, with General Motors listing the midsizer at $29,500 in work-oriented specification. The Ranger, which comes exclusively as a SuperCrew for 2024, is $32,670. Then again, even the XL now features alloy wheels instead of good ol' steel wheels as standard.
Refreshed for model year 2024, the Gladiator is available to configure solely as a 2023 at press time, with prices kicking off at 39,620 for the Sport grade with the standard soft top. The Frontier is $29,930 from the outset, putting it closest to the Colorado in this regard. Last but certainly not least, Toyota's i-FORCE turbo four-cylinder Tacoma is $31,500. The i-FORCE MAX hybrid turbo four-pot Taco is due to start production in April 2024, meaning that the first units will arrive at dealers sometime in Q2 2024.
Editor's note:
An earlier version of this story mistakenly included Q1 2023 to Q3 2023 deliveries (179,681) rather than the full-year sales total (234,768) for the mid-sized Tacoma.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News