Ford Knocks Off GM for #1 Spot in US

Ford ($F) is now the top-selling carmaker in the U.S.

Ford outsold GM last month to become America’s most popular automaker, according to figures released April 1.

Traditionally the second-placed brand in the US, Ford leapfrogged GM to sell 212,295 vehicles last month, over 5,000 more than GM and an impressive raise of 16 percent.

The last time GM – which includes brands such as Chevrolet, Buick and GMC – ceded top spot to Ford was in February 2010, and before that in 1998, according to Automotive News.

In total, GM sold 206,621 cars during March, an increase of ten percent which the automaker said was thanks to demand for the new Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan.

Despite predictions that March would see the first sales fall in more than seven months, US consumers bought more vehicles than the same period in 2010, pushing sales up by 17 percent – suggesting that the market wasn’t as jittery as predicted about oil prices, ongoing unrest in the Middle East and the Japanese earthquake.

Here are the numbers. The shares look to open today at a six-week high.

Posted by on April 4th, 2011 at 8:16 am


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