2011: Onward and Upward Edition [UPDATE]

Which were the best-performing brands and automakers in 2011? We'll tell you, and the answers may be surprising. The top two best-performing brands surprised us. Jeep led the pack with a 44.04-percent sales increase for the year, followed by Mitsubishi, whose sales jumped 40.07 percent.
Behind those two are the two brands we knew early on would have great years: Kia and Volkswagen. Kia gained significant ground on fellow South Korean automaker Hyundai last year by posting a larger sales increase for the year, 36.27 percent to 19.97 percent, respectively. Volkswagen, meanwhile, proved everyone wrong who questioned its decision to make the redesigned Jetta more cost competitive with a sales gain of 26.21 percent for the year on the back of that little compact car's 54.5-percent increase in sales.

The bottom of our table is also not surprisingly occupied almost entirely by Toyota, Honda and their luxury brands, which are joined by Infiniti and Lincoln. One could too easily argue that Toyota's and Honda's sales trouble in the U.S. last year had everything to do with natural disasters and their effect on production, but that would be ignoring their aging fleet of products, some not-so-well-received redesigns and how much more fierce their competition has become.

Finally, since we teased you last month with a select group of particular sales races we were interested in, we thought we'd let you know which models won.

• 2011 Best-Selling Minivan: Toyota Sienna (111,429), Dodge Caravan (110,862)
• 2011 Best-Selling Pony Car: Chevrolet Camaro (88,249), Ford Mustang (70,438)
• 2011 Best-Selling Small Car: Toyota Corolla (240,258) vs. Chevy Cruze (231,732)
• 2011 Best-Selling Mid-Size Sedan behind Camry (308,510) and Altima (268,981): Ford Fusion (248,067), Honda Accord (235,625)

*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 307 selling days in 2011 and 306 selling days in 2010, so the change in monthly sales volume will be different than the change in average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company.