Toyota Breezes Past Detroit in September Sales
September performance numbers for American auto makers were meager in comparison to Toyota's impressive 25 percent gain, driven in large part by increased truck and SUV sales. Toyota light truck sales climbed 36 percent in September with Tundra sales up 65 percent. (A new Tundra will be launched shortly.)

By comparison Ford saw a gain of 5 percent while GM was down 3.1 percent and Chrysler 4 percent. Honda sales decreased by 8 percent and Nissan by 9.2 percent. All of these auto makers are looking at re-tooling their sales strategies to compensate for the declining numbers.

Both GM and Ford will pull back their sales to rental fleets and turn their attention to more profitable retails sales to consumers. When examined in isolation of other sales Ford's retail sales saw a 6 percent gain and GM was just less than one percent. Chrysler does not keep separate figures on retail and fleet sales.

Specific Ford models that are not doing well on the market include the Ford Five Hundred, Mercury Montego, Ford Freestyle and Ford Ranger. Their sedans however - the Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKA - are enjoying healthy sales and the company plans to introduce two crossovers in the coming months, the Ford Edge and the Lincoln MKX. The Ford Taurus will be discontinued at the end of October but will go out as the company's top selling car this year with at approximately 150,000 vehicles sold.

Limited supplies of the Chevy Aveo, Cobalt, and Malibu hurt GM's sales figures although retail sales did increase by 1,400 vehicles in September. Sales for Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac all declined. GM plans a fourth-quarter reduction in production to cut its inventory.

Analysts agree that GM, Ford and Chrysler need to divest themselves of older models that did not perform well with the public and concentrate on the introduction of new models that represent future automotive trends. Toyota, however, is not showing a decrease in momentum and Nissan is set to launch a new vehicle line, making the game all the harder for the Detroit auto makers.