Click above for a high-res gallery of the US-spec SYMBA scooter
Someday soon, you may once again meet the nicest people on a Honda. The Honda Cub, first sold in 1958, has sold millions of individual units, making the Cub the best-selling vehicle in history. Despite this amazing success, the Cub and its derivatives have been conspicuously absent in the United States for the last few decades. While Honda has not announced any plans to relaunch its little 50cc machine here in the States, SYM is rumored to be bringing a very nice replica in its place. Honda’s worldwide patents on the Cub’s design expired years ago, and some pretty cheap Chinese copies have been making the rounds ever since. SYM, though, is an extremely reputable company that makes excellent machines.
SYM is expected to call its new cycle the SYMBA, which is a play on the Cub name we all know and love. Expect the new SYMBA, complete with its fuel mileage numbers well over 100 miles per gallon, to hit American shores – finally! – next Spring.
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Throughout the 1990s and into the early years of this decade, the Ford Explorer was consistently the top-selling SUV and among the best selling of all vehicles. With two plants consistently churning out over 400,000 units a year, Explorers were everywhere, as was/is the demand for replacement parts.
After the Ford Taurus went all ovoid in 1996, it remained one of the top sellers behind the Camry and Accord. Unfortunately for Ford, it did so thanks to being the flagship of America’s rental fleets. Nonetheless, used Tauruses still populate America’s roads and will for some time to come.
The sporty Civic-derived Integra was once the heart of Acura’s lineup. That is, before the brand went coo-koo for crossovers. Even years after the model was discontinued, it remains poplular with the sport-import tuner crowd.
The Jeep Cherokee gave birth to the modern SUV craze and big brother Grand Cherokee cemented the deal. The Grand Cherokee was typically second only to the Explorer in annual sales until the Daimler era came along.
The original minivan was still a huge seller with families as the new millenium dawned, although its star had begun to fade. Even now, it remains the big fish in a much smaller pond.
In the American full-size pickup market, even third place amounts to multiple hundreds of thousands of vehicle sales a year. Ever since the T300 Ram debuted in the early 90s, the big-grilled Dodge has been a staple of the truck market.
With the exception of the June 2008 surge by the Honda Civic, the Ford F-150 has been the top selling vehicle in America since just before the dawn of time. F-Series trucks often serve many years before their operators finally retire them.
Ford
In 1989 the Camry was still making its climb to the top of the sales heap. Nonetheless, it had already established a well-earned reputation for vanilla design, appliance-like driving behavior and superb reliability. Even these two-decade-old examples are still abundant.
By the mid-90s, the Civic had grown from its mini origins into a compact that appealed to many drivers. By this time the styling had become as plain as vanilla, having abandoned ideas like the CR-X and the tall Wagon. However, it still had good dynamic characteristics and Honda sturdiness.
By 1994 the Accord had become a staple of the mid-sized car market and, along with the Camry and Taurus, had risen to the top three in overall car sales in the U.S. Like the Camry, it too had become thoroughly blandified and innocuous to look at. Its visual homogenization, however, only spurred sales and with so many still on the roads 15 years later, the demand for replacement parts is strong.
[Source: The Scooter Scoop]