It’s a happy new year indeed for the team at Volkswagen: Following a final month of the year in which VW earned 32,502 sales—its highest December total since Richard Nixon was in the White House—Volkswagen reported a full-year sales mark of 324,402 units, representing a 26.3 percent jump and the most annual deliveries since 2002.
As expected, the Volkswagen Jetta set the pace, continuing to show strong momentum after last year’s redesign. In its first full year on the market, the Americanized Jetta sedan grew sales at a heady clip to finish just under the 100,000-unit mark. The final tally: 97,448 deliveries that reflected a 54.5 percent jump over 2010. Following a similar design strategy geared toward attracting more U.S. buyers, the all-new 2012 Volkswagen Passat has been garnering a similar level of success. After selling just over 10,000 units in all of 2010, the next-gen model more than doubled that mark over just the final four months of last year. That made for a 124 percent annual increase and sets the table for a big-time sales feast in 2012.