GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

The wholesale price behaviors in the market’s top segments during the past month, given recent gas-price movements, might come as a bit of a surprise.

But according to analysis from Black Book released Wednesday, fuel-efficient vehicle values have actually seen a more dramatic decline, percentage-wise, than large SUVs.

For example, compact car prices down are more than 3 percent from mid-July, and the top large truck segments have fallen less than 2 percent in the same time frame, Black Book said.

This has occurred even as gas prices have surged lately, hitting a national average of $3.70/gallon after a $0.30 rise in recent weeks.

To illustrate this trend, Black Book offered the following data showing the movements in the top three fuel-efficient car and top three large truck segments since mid-July (with the respective wholesale price change in parenthesis).

Fuel-Efficient Car Segments                        
1. Compact Car (down 3.1 percent)
2. Compact CUV (down 2.6 percent)
3. Entry-Level Car (down 2.5 percent)

Large Truck Segments
1. Luxury SUV (down 1.9 percent)
2. Full-Size Pickup (down 1.7 percent)
3. Full-Size SUV (down 1.3 percent)

This type of movement may seem counter-intuitive, in light of such high gas prices. Black Book’s Ricky Beggs addressed the relationship between topsy-turvy fuel costs and wholesale segment trends in his weekly video report on wholesale trends.

“It is hard to say if gas price fluctuation is causing any of the changes we are reporting,” he said in the latest “Beggs on the Used Car Market” report.

“The luxury SUVs continued their strong decline, but at the same time, two of the three more fuel-efficient car segments had the strongest percentage declines for the week,” he added, referring to last week’s wholesale trends.

To see more on Beggs’ analysis of last week’s wholesale trends, read Auto Remarketing’s recap.