2024 will end with a momentous Return of the King.
Recommended Videos
No, we’re not talking about Tolkien’s 1955 work. The Toyota Corolla’s flirtation with top dog status on Canada’s passenger car leaderboard ends after a two-year stint. Corolla volume slipped 8% through the first 11 months of 2024, according to Automotive News. Sales of its chief rival, meanwhile, jumped 13% from 2023 levels to reach 29,237 units through the end of November.
That chief rival, of course, is the car that held tightly to the No.1 position for 24 consecutive years, a streak that began in 1998 and went unbroken until the Corolla moved in on its territory in 2022. “Part of Honda’s drive and passion is that we consistently pursue No.1,” Honda Canada’s John Bordignon tells Driving.
Bordignon, Honda’s brand communications spokesperson, describes a prolonged period that severely curtailed Civic volume – Canadian sales plunged 54% from pre-pandemic 2019 levels in 2023.
“2022 and 2023 were particularly challenging,” Bordignon says, “as we dealt with the continued aftermath of Covid as well as parts delays and global supply chain issues impacting Civic more than other Honda models.” During the same period in which Civic sales fell 54%, the Accord, CR-V, HR-V, Odyssey, Passport, Pilot, and Ridgeline combined to slide just 18%.
Putting some distance between the post-COVID supply chain constraints and the Civic’s Alliston, Ontario, assembly plant certainly contributed to the old king’s 2024 reemergence. But there is another key component. “Since the launch of the Civic Hybrid as a 2025 model,” Bordignon says, “the hybrid variant represents close to 60% of the retail volume for the Civic nameplate in Canada.”
Honda of Canada Manufacturing began assembling Civic Hybrids in June. That 60% figure works out to 2,050 Civic Hybrid sales in November alone, more than the entire Corolla lineup’s 1,805 sales. With hybrid availability improving over the course of the summer and fall, Civic volume in the September-November period jumped 17%.
The king’s return to the throne, however, does not necessarily mean that the throne is even remotely as resplendent as it was five, 10, 15, or 20 years ago. See, Canada’s current car market is a mere shadow of its former self. Over half of all auto sales in 2009 were cars. That figure now stands at just 14%.
This means that the Civic, even as the lord of the manor, is simply fighting for a big slice of an increasingly insignificant pie. Honda Canada’s Civic record was set in 2008 with 72,463 sales, equalling 8% of the car market at the time. With half that much volume, Honda’s portion of Canada’s car market has grown beyond 11%.
Meanwhile, south of the border, Toyota’s grip on the top spot remains solid in 2024, albeit not with the Corolla. The Toyota Camry’s 283,065 sales through the end of November represents a 7% uptick, year-over-year.
Toyota also holds tightly to the far more lucrative and voluminous status as the builder of Canada’s best-selling SUV. The RAV4’s 69,792 year-to-date sales put Toyota’s top model – and Canada’s best-selling non-pickup – 18,411 units clear of the second-ranked Honda CR-V.
As for the cars, how can we be certain that Honda has actually built an insurmountable lead over the second-ranked Corolla? After all, there’s a month’s worth of sales data yet to be reported.
For one thing, the Civic is 5,140 sales ahead of the No.2 Corolla (and nearly 11,000 sales ahead of the Hyundai Elantra). Overcoming this deficit would require the Corolla to sell in the vicinity of 7,000 units in December, yet the Corolla has averaged fewer than 1,900 monthly sales over the last three months and averaged just over 1,900 December Corolla sales over the last half-decade.
In other words, it’s over. The king is back.
Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on Instagram ,Facebook and X to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.