Women Favor Compact, Cute in the Cars They Buy

Women, marketing experts say, buy half of all new cars sold these days.

It makes sense that the vehicles they shun--big Ford and Chevy pickups and exotic performance cars such as the Dodge Viper--are those that are advertised with a heavily macho message.

But which vehicles do women actually prefer?

We asked the number-crunchers at J.D. Power & Associates to pull that data from the Power Information Network, which tracks daily sales activities at hundreds of new-car dealerships in the country’s 19 largest auto markets.

Here’s what they found women were buying from November through Feb. 4. Note that three of the 10 leading models are cute-utes, otherwise known as small sport-utility vehicles.

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What Women Want

Here’s what women were buying from November through Feb. 4:

Models women like most ...

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Rank Model % bought by women 1 Volkswagen Cabrio 61.8% 2 Suzuki Vitara SUV 61.1 3 Pontiac Sunfire 57.2 4 Saturn SL sedan 53.2 5 Mercury Cougar 52.9 6 Kia Sportage SUV 52.7 7 Mitsubishi Mirage 52.0 8 Toyota Camry Solara 51.8 9 Honda CR-V SUV 51.7 10 Toyota Echo 51.7

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... and least.

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Rank Model % bought by women 224 Jaguar XJR 13.9% 225 Porsche 911 13.6 226 Chevrolet Express 3500 13.6 227 GMC Sierra pickup 13.1 228 Dodge Viper 12.9 229 Ford F-250 pickup 12.7 230 Suzuki Swift 12.5 231 Chevrolet C/K pickup 11.8 232 Ford F-350 pickup 11.2 233 BMW M5 sedan 11.0

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Source: J.D. Power & Associates