Women are mysterious figures, and the mystery of what women want has perplexed men (except for Mel Gibson in that movie where he said he was exfoliating) for ages. Luckily for all those perplexed men in the auto business, Polk has done a study and found the ten most feminine new cars with women. So what do women want? Convertibles and small SUVs.
The survey didn’t actually find the most popular new cars with women, it found the ten cars that are proportionally the most popular with women buyers. The Volvo S40, number one on the list, probably sells less vehicles to women than the more popular vehicles like the Ford F-150 or the Toyota Corolla, but those vehicles are also popular with men, so they don’t get a spot on the list.
Speaking of the number one Volvo S40, only 2,984 were sold in the U.S. last year, compared to 240,259 Corollas, so the shift towards women buyers could just be a statistical anomaly.
Here are the top ten 2011 vehicles most likely to be driven by a woman, along with the percentage of buyers who were female:
#1. Volvo S40 – 57.9% female
#2. Nissan Rogue – 56.9% female
#3. Volkswagen EOS – 56.4% female
#4. Volkswagen Beetle – 54.6% female
#5. Toyota Matrix – 54.1% female
#6. Hyundai Tucson – 54.0% female
#7 Honda CR-V 53.4% female
#8 Toyota RAV4 53.0% female
#9(tie) Nissan Juke & Jeep Compass – 52.7% female
The VW Beetle saw a huge upshot in male buyers for 2011. In 2010 just 36% of all Beetle buyers were male, according to Inside Line while last year it rose to 45.4%.
