Men, Women and Cars

American men prefer fast and powerful vehicles and women practical ones. OK, so now we'll try and tell you something you don't know, based on an annual survey by R. L. Polk & Co - starting with the fact that three of the men's top 5 models are German and three of the women's are manufactured by Saturn.

The survey looks at purchases of vehicles with at least 1,000 new vehicle registrations per model, and calculates the percentage of all new vehicles registered by each gender. In the 2003 survey, the Toyota RAV4 had the highest proportion of female buyers, followed by Saturn's SC, SL and ION models.

The top four vehicles among American men are high-performance cars - the Dodge Viper, the BMW M5, the Porsche 911 and the Audi A8. Rounding out the top five is the GMC Sierra pickup truck. According to Lonnie Miller, director of analytical solutions at Polk, 'American men have a clear preference for performance and power, whereas women - who have tremendous influence on purchasing decisions in the household - select vehicles that are practical. Part of Saturn's success in appealing to women may be their hallmark no-haggle sales process; an acknowledgement that a customer-friendly approach can make a difference in attracting customers'.

Polk is a privately held firm based in Southfield, Michigan, with operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the US.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

• R. L. Polk & Co.
• All news