By the Numbers - March 2010: Get Off My Back Edition

Incentives push Toyota up 41%, Buick sales skyrocket up 76%

Why "Get Off My Back"? Because over the past few months as automakers like General Motors and Ford have begun the process of selling off or shutting down their under-performing brands, it's become increasingly difficult to determine how well the healthy parts of these companies are doing. These doomed or waiting-to-be-sold brands have weighed each automaker down like a backpack full of lead, so it's time to get them off their backs.

In this month's edition of By the Numbers, we've included results for General Motors as a whole as well as just its four core brands of Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC, and for Ford we've included a separate result that doesn't include Volvo. This is how these two major American automakers will be viewed going forward, and as you can see, their healthy parts took a shot of steroids in the right cheek during the month of March 2010.

GM's core brands saw sales collectively rise by 43.3 percent versus March 2009. Likewise, without the weight of Volvo and its 17.6-percent drop in sales last month, Ford Motor Company sales were up 42.7 percent. Chrysler Group, which is essentially the same company selling the same vehicles it was before bankruptcy despite now being run by Fiat, managed to only fall 8.3 percent in sales versus 2009, which for them is practically a win.

Of course, Toyota is the hottest topic amongst last month's sales results. After watching sales fall in February by 10.1 percent due to all the negative PR surrounding its sudden acceleration recalls, the beleaguered Japanese automaker fought back in March with its most aggressive sales incentives ever. The result: Customers came back and sales for the brand were up 40.5 percent versus the same month last year.

*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 26 selling days in March 2010 versus 25 selling days in March 2009, so the change in monthly sales volume will be different than the change in the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company.

UPDATE: Audi added to chart and Saab sales, which are no longer reported by General Motors, corrected.