I wonder if you could look back and establish a "increase in sales of cheapest car in the US market" as a leading indicator of recessions.Mirage sales, despite it being in it's final year of sales in the US, rise by 85% from last year.
Nissan Versa and Mitsubishi Mirage Sales Are Soaring in 2024
Mitsubishi has sold 85% more Mirages over the first half of 2024, and Nissan 61% more Versas.www.thedrive.com
In recent years, I think it's more related to the used car market being so absolutely overstuffed with off-lease vehicles that are priced almost as much as new cars. When you have the options of either paying $20k for either a five year old Camry from a buy-here-pay-here or something that's going to at least be new and have a manufacturer's warranty, it makes more sense to go with the latter.
One would think that sales of these cars would have boomed since Dodge completely abandoned the entry level/compact segment.
Good luck finding a Camry at a BHPH, the mid-size segment at those kinds of places consist of pretty much just Altimas and Chrysler 200s. Maybe some Malibus too.
