By the Numbers: April 2011 - Double-Digit Edition

April Showers Bring Double-Digit Sales Increases

Lincoln, Lexus, Infiniti and Chrysler are the only nameplates that failed to boast improved sales in April of 2011 when compared to the same period one year ago. Besides those Debbie Downers, things are looking pretty darn good for automakers in the United States.

We're awfully curious to see what the impending summer selling seasons will have in store for Japanese automakers as they continue to claw back production lost due to the devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the country just weeks ago, but for now, it seems no shortages have yet to significantly impact any sales figures.

Breaking individual model sales out a bit yields some interesting results. For instance, the Chevrolet Cruze, with 25,160 sales, outsold the Toyota Corolla (24,215) but fell about a thousand units shy of the class-leading Honda Civic (26,777).

The Ford brand also outsold Chevrolet, for those interested in that age-old American bragging right, but perhaps more interesting is the stunning success at Buick. With 18,413 total sales, Buick managed to outsell Lexus ( again) and is knocking hard on the doors of such luxury stalwarts as BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

There were a number of heavily redesigned models that boasted huge gains over their predecessors, such as the Volkswagen Jetta (16,955 total sales, a 74-percent increase) and the Jeep Compass (4,050) and Grand Cherokee (9,802), which each outsold their 2010 counterparts by over 180 percent.

In all, the top 19 performers each posted double-digit sales gains in April of 2011. Impressive performances, to be sure. Check out all the numbers in our handy-dandy chart below.

* UPDATE: Added Mazda and Mitsubishi to chart.

*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 27 selling days in March 2011 versus 26 selling days in March 2010, so the change in monthly sales volume will be different than the change in average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company. Also, brands are combined and reported as companies only if their sales figures are released jointly.