Automotive News Canada - December 2017 - 8

* D E C E M B E R 2017

Retiring Mitsubishi PR veteran will miss
the relationships, but not the commute
John Arnone wants
to be remembered
for Breakfast Club of
Canada, which feeds
school children
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

THE HEAD OF PUBLIC
relations for Mitsubishi Motor
Sales of Canada for the past six
years will retire after 35 years
in the Canadian automotive
and aerospace industries.
Replacing John Arnone is
Michelle-Lee Gracey, who, with
more than 15 years experience,
becomes corporate communications manager. Her most recent
position was manager of corporate communications for Ford
Motor Co. of Canada, where
she was responsible for consumer and manufacturing-related public relations.
After earning a bachelor's degree in journalism
from the Ryerson Polytechnic
Institute in Toronto (now
Ryerson University) in 1983,
Arnone began his career in
Saskatchewan, reporting for a
local newspaper. He returned
to Toronto the following year
to make his entry into automotive journalism by becoming
founding editor of Canadian
Automotive Fleet magazine.
During his tenure there,
Arnone was recognized as

John Arnone is retiring after
35 years and more than 25 car
launches, most recently with
Mitsubishi.
(PHOTO: MITSUBISHI)

the Automobile Journalists
Association of Canada's Jaguar
Land Rover Journalist of the
Year in 1986. In his acceptance
speech, he announced that he
would donate his prize money
to the Ryerson bereavement
bursary that allowed him to
finish his schooling after his
father died at age 48. He was
his family's sole breadwinner.
"As the story goes, my
acceptance speech touched the
spouse of Jaguar Canada CEO
John Mackie so profoundly
that she convinced him to hire
me," Arnone said.

JAGUAR SET THE COURSE
Arnone joined Jaguar
Canada as head of public affairs in 1988, which set
him on the path of corporate
communications, where he
remained for the duration
of his career. He was transferred to Ford of Canada in
1995 and performed roles both

at the Canadian head office in
Oakville, Ont., and the global headquarters in Dearborn,
Mich. In 2007, Arnone accepted a position with Bombardier
Aerospace, staying until he
rejoined the automotive industry in 2012 with Mitsubishi.
Over the decades, he has
overseen the launch of more
than 25 automotive products
and traveled to 435 locations
in Canada, the United States,
Europe, Asia, the Middle East,
Russia and Australia. He counts
an infusion of corporate social
responsibility through connecting Mitsubishi Motors with
the Breakfast Club of Canada,
which provides breakfasts to
school children, as one of his
career's greatest achievements
and "an initiative that I hope to
be remembered by."

NO MORE COMMUTE
"I'll tell you what I won't
miss," Arnone told Automotive
News Canada. "I won't miss
the daily slog of commuting.
I won't miss airports. I won't
miss compromising on my family life. I won't miss having
sometimes to feign a passion
when what really motivated me
in my career was the career, it
was making a living and providing for my family.
"But I will miss relationships - some fleeting, some
long-term - with my coworkers, with the media, and with
the vendors and partners with
whom I've worked." - ANC

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While the Volvo V90 wagon is outselling its sedan counterpart in Canada, the Toyota RAV4 is virtually tied with its
Corolla-sedan sibling. ( P H O T O S : V O LV O , T O Y O TA )

Numerous records broken
despite November sales dip
Trucks claim
72 per cent of the
market as sales
of 2M units seems
likely for 2017
By JEREMY SINEK

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

CANADA'S FIRST
two-million-plus auto-sales
year still looks like a sure
thing, even after a modest
sales dip in November. The
1.2-per-cent decline - in the
same number of selling days
as November 2016 - left the
year-to-date total still five
per cent ahead of 2016's pace.
With 1.92 million sales
now in the bank, Canadian
auto dealers would need to
push only 81,000 cars and
light trucks over the curb in
December to top two million
for the year. December sales
averaged more than 116,000
over the past 10 years, with
a low of about 95,000 even
during the Great Recession
in 2008.
Meanwhile, November's
159,072 count was still the
second-best November ever,
and well above the previous 10-year average of about
126,600.
The month also saw
trucks' market share
achieve a new high of 72
per cent as their sales grew
three per cent and passenger-car sales declined 11 per
cent. FCA Canada's total car
sales shriveled to 366 units
in November (not counting Ferrari and Maserati).
That's just two per cent of
FCA's total sales for the
month. Despite reporting 3.5
per cent lower overall truck
sales, FCA was still able
to boast record November
sales for the Jeep Wrangler
and the Ram pickup.
GM Canada failed to
extend its recent streak,
with sales sagging 17 per
cent in November.
Year-to-date, GM remains
about 8,000 units shy of Ford
in the contest for top-selling
manufacturer, a gap that's
unlikely to close before the
end of the year.
Combined, Detroit's
sales fell 10 per cent in
November, while the offshore-based manufacturers advanced their sales six
per cent. November records
were reported by Honda

Canada, Mazda, MercedesBenz, Porsche, Subaru
and Toyota Canada. Volvo
reported a 61-per-cent sales
spike. Subaru and Jaguar
Land Rover also reported
new annual sales records,
one month early.
Interestingly, Volvo is
selling more V90 wagons
(423 YTD) than S90 sedan
(363) even though the wagon
variant only went on sale
part way through February.
Likewise, the smaller V60
wagon substantially outsells
its S60 sedan counterpart.
Record sales for
November were also
claimed for Ford's F series
pickup and the Oakvillebuilt Ford Edge. The
F-series has an unassailable lead as the country's
top-selling vehicle, with
more than 146,000 sold so far
in 2017. That's more than
twice as many as the country's top-selling car, the
Honda Civic.
Despite the market's
swing to utility vehicles, the
Civic still outsells its CR-V
sibling. At Toyota, however,
the compact car-versus-utility contest could go either
way: As of November, the
RAV4 was in front of the
Corolla by just two units.
In other Top-10 action,
the Dodge Caravan minivan managed to edge its
way back into the year-todate sales chart, having
almost unprecedentedly
dropped out in October.
- ANC

MOVERS
& SHAKERS

(Compared with the
same month a year ago)
* Porsche 911: +343%
* Volvo XC60: +264%
* Land Rover LR4/
Discovery: +260%
* Mercedes-AMG GT: +243%
* Volvo brand: +61%
* Volkswagen brand: +32%
* Porsche brand: +30%
* Smart: -92%
* Fiat 500L: -91%
* Fiat 500X: -85%
* Infiniti QX30: -77%
* Fiat 124 Spider: -70%
* Fiat brand: -66%

FULL OF SURPRISES
Chrysler 300 October: +597%
Chrysler 300 November: -61%

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - December 2017