With Toyota on the rocks, Detroit 3 surge

The Detroit 3 gained a chunk of U.S. market share on their competitors from Japan in January, taking 45.1 percent of January sales compared with 38.1 percent for the Japanese.

Indeed, it was the eighth month in the past 12 months in which the domestics gained ground on the Japanese. The Detroiters' 7 percentage point lead last month was up from a 5.4 point spread in December.

And two of the Detroit 3 posted significant sales gains, at least compared with January 2009; Ford Motor Co.'s domestic brands were up 24 percent over last year, and General Motors Co.'s rose 15 percent. But go easy on the celebrating -- last January was horrendous for both companies.

Industry sales of 698,990 were 6 percent better than January 2009. But a better comparison is with 2007, the last of the industry's string of nine consecutive 16 million-plus sales years. Last month's sales for the industry were down 36 percent from the opening month of 2007.

GM's 15 percent increase is based on sales of four makes this year and seven makes last year. Looking only at the survivors -- Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC-- GM's January sales were up 31 percent.

Not long ago, "fleet sales" were almost dirty words in the domestic industry. Each month, Detroit 3 sales executives gushed about how much they had cut fleet deliveries. Today, fleet sales are back in style. GM's fleet sales tripled in January, and Ford's more than doubled. Ford's fleet accounts for 37 percent of its January sales, or 42,000 units.

For the industry, last month's anemic sales of 698,990 were the second-weakest January total in more than 22 years. Last year's were worse. This year and last year were the only times since 1993 that January sales checked in at fewer than 1 million.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. estimated that its mounting recall problems cost the company 20,000 sales in January.

So, Chevrolet was the best-selling brand for the month, replacing Toyota; and Ford Motor was the No. 2 corporate seller, also unseating Toyota.

The Honda Accord became the best-selling car in the United States, and the Nissan Altima was second. The Toyota Camry, the perennial leader, slipped to fifth place in January behind the Toyota Corolla/Matrix and Chevrolet Malibu.

January was a terrible month for Chrysler Group. Sales were down 8 percent. Chrysler and Dodge sold only 15,362 cars last month, about five per dealership.

Nissan North America sneaked ahead of Chrysler to become the nation's fifth best-selling automaker after GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda. And seventh-place Hyundai-Kia Automotive was only 4,517 sales behind Chrysler.