Driving By Numbers: What were Canada’s best-selling vehicles in 2000?

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As much of Canada’s auto market is currently capped by the number of vehicles automakers can supply, at the turn of the century automotive manufacturers were fighting for every last tooth and nail of market share with surging incentives. The year 2000, at the time, was one of the best years on record for the Canadian automotive industry with more than 1.55 million sales.

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But the tide was turning. The traditional Big Three Detroit automakers saw their share of the market, while still formidable at 66 percent, slide as import momentum picked up steam. It was the first year for Kia, for example. Premium brands that today exert so much control — Mercedes-Benz and BMW — combined for fewer than 23,000 sales. That’s the kind of volume the German duo produced in only the first five months of 2021, while 22-year-old Kia Canada now produces in two months what it did in all of calendar year 2000.

As for the Big Three, owning two-thirds of the market now sounds downright comical. The trio sold over one million vehicles in 2000, 400,000 more than in 2021. GM, Ford, and Stellantis own barely more than one-third of the Canadian market in 2021. Need more context? General Motors sold roughly the same number of passenger cars — a branch of the company that now barely exists — in 2000 as Toyota, Lexus, Honda, and Acura sold total vehicles, combined.

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Yet it wasn’t GM, but rather its Ford compatriot, that dominated the best seller charts in 2000, and it was a DaimlerChrysler vehicle that actually topped those charts. Fast forward to the current decade and Ford, GM, and Chrysler-related brands remain major players on Canada’s best-seller lists, but it’s not with cars and minivans. Trucks and SUVs are the dominant vehicles of our time, a major shift from 2000 when a clear majority of the new vehicles sold in Canada were passenger cars. Keep in mind, in 2000, Daewoo sold more cars than BMW sold SUVs. While today Land Rover outsells its Jaguar partner by nearly 5-to-1 in Canada, in 2000, all-car Jaguar sold twice as many vehicles as all-SUV Land Rover.

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Yet there are nevertheless lingering aspects of the Canadian market we knew in 2000. Some things take more than a couple decades to change. Here are the five best-selling vehicles in 2000 — let’s see where they stand today.

5. Ford Focus

In its first full year on the market, the Ford Focus was an undeniable hit. Clocking in at No.5 overall, the Escort-replacing Focus was Canada’s second-best-selling car. Nearly two decades later, the final 1,582 copies of Ford Canada’s compact car were sold in 2019. Mustang aside, Ford is no longer a player in Canada’s shrinking car market. In 2000, cars formed 35 per cent of Ford’s Canadian volume; nearly 100,000 units.

Canada’s fifth-best-selling vehicle in 2021 was the Chevrolet Silverado.

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4. Ford Windstar

Before undergoing a rebranding process as the Freestar, Ford’s Windstar minivan was an extremely high-volume contender. To be fair, even in its final full year (2006), the dying Ford Freestar produced 11,692 sales, virtually on par with Canada’s top-selling minivan in 2021. It’s clearly a different world. Ford jumped out of the minivan segment at a point when minivan sales were five times stronger than they are now.

The No.4 vehicle in Canada in 2021 was the GMC Sierra.

3. Honda Civic

The Honda Civic is competing for a slice of a much smaller pie now than it was in 2000, but it remains the dominant passenger car in Canada. 2000 was the third consecutive year of best-selling-car status for the Canadian-built Civic, a run that now stands at 24 years. But while cars accounted for 55 per cent of all new vehicle sales in 2000, the Civic is now a big fish in a much smaller pond — in 2021, fewer than 20 per cent of auto sales in Canada were of the car variety.

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The Toyota RAV4 was Canada’s third-best-selling vehicle in 2021.

2. Ford F-Series

After six consecutive years as Canada’s No.1 vehicle line, the Ford F-Series succumbed to a minivan — yes, a minivan — in 2000. Now routinely cranking out well over 100,000 sales per year, a feat never accomplished in a single year by any other vehicle, the broad F-Series lineup has held onto the top spot every year since 2009. Revealing just how important the F-150 and its Super Duty partners are to a modern Ford Motor Company, Ford’s other top sellers in 2000 no longer exist in the Canadian market. In 2021, 49 per cent of Ford’s Canadian sales came from the F-Series and no other Ford ranked in the top 10.

Ram’s pickup line was Canada’s second-best-selling vehicle in 2021.

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1. Dodge Caravan

In the Y2K era, the Dodge Caravan took over as Canada’s best-selling vehicle for three consecutive years. Revealing just how wildly different Canada’s automotive tastes were 22 years ago, the Caravan — on its own — produced 87,737 sales. That’s in addition to its partner vans at Chrysler, plus vans from almost every other mainstream brand. In 2021, on the other hand, the entire minivan market totalled only 33,648 units and three Chrysler/Dodge nameplates combined for only 13,339 sales, down from 25,643 in 2020.

The top-ranked vehicle line in Canada in 2021 was the Ford F-Series.