Greenwood led combined July new, used car sales

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Greenwood Chevrolet of Austintown sold the most new and used vehicles locally for July.

The dealership sold 369 vehicles, and Greg Greenwood, owner of Greenwood Chevrolet, attributed the success to the Chevrolet Cruze and Silverado models.

“The Chevy Cruze is our top-selling car; it really helped us drive those numbers,” Greenwood said. “But it was also a great Silverado month. Those two products alone were a lot of our business.”

According to data released Wednesday by the Automobile Dealers Association of Eastern Ohio, Sweeney Chevrolet in Boardman came in second for the most new and used vehicles sold with 297. Sweeney beat Greenwood in the category of most new cars sold with 227 compared with Greenwood’s 202 sold in July.

Taylor Kia of Boardman came in third place for new and used vehicle sales with 242 sold.

Doug Sweeney, president of Sweeney Chevrolet, said the Cruze model also contributed a lot to his dealership’s success this month.

“We’re fortunate to have the Cruze that’s made out in Lordstown,” he said, referring to the GM vehicle complex in Trumbull County.

The data showed that both Greenwood and Sweeney sales were up from their numbers last year. Greenwood said he thinks the increase is due to consumer confidence and better deals on vehicles.

“It’s been a nice mixture of what it takes to make a marketplace work,” he said. “While I think it was a decent year last year, too, I think it’s been better overall this year.”

Sweeney said he also would attribute the increase in sales to lower interest rates and improved gas mileage with newer vehicles.

“Gas mileage has improved with new cars so much,” Sweeney said. “And I think people are generally excited about the new cars and trucks. They want to try them out.”

The leading brand locally in July was Chevrolet with 880 sold. Ford came in second with 402, and GMC came in third with 165.

The Cruze was July’s leading new model with 222 sold, an increase of 39 from last July.

The top-five new models in the Mahoning Valley for July were all GM brands. The Chevrolet Equinox came in second with 202 sold, the Silverado 1500 came in third with 121 sold, the Malibu came in fourth with 116 sold, and the GMC Terrain was fifth with 88 sold.

Greenwood led the used-vehicle sales with 167 sold in July. The Cruze also led used-vehicle sales with 107 sold in July, an increase of 32 from last July.

The Malibu came in second for used-vehicle sales with 97 sold in July, and the Impala came in third with 92 sold.