GPS America by Business Insider

Using an exclusive dataset of 1.7 million car listings, this interactive reveals the most uniquely popular vehicle models in locales across the U.S. The analysis is based on how much a vehicle’s popularity exceeds the national average, illuminating the geographic quirks of car preferences. From the dominance of four-wheel drive vehicles in Northern Montana, to the luxury vehicles frequently found in Palm Beach, Florida, car popularity reflects the character of the region and its residents. The scrolling map narrative highlights some of these revelations, taking readers on a tour of diverse American places. Then readers are invited to look up their location, displaying the five most uniquely popular vehicles for that county. If there is no data for a particular location, it displays results for the closest location with data. To assemble our database, we looked at all car listings on cargurus.com from August 2 to December 16, 2023. The local popularity of vehicles was ranked not by a model's total number of listings in a particular county but by calculating how much its local listings exceeded its average across all counties nationwide. To weed out anomalies, we considered only counties with at least 400 car listings, and only car models that appeared at least 400 times nationally. For every location with data, the results include an image of the top vehicle, a task that required compiling nearly 200 images. This piece was one of four graphics-driven articles drawing from our analysis.