U.S. car buyers came out of hibernation in April to spend on pickups and sport utility vehicles, fueling an auto-sales rebound that analysts expect to last the rest of the year.
Nissan led the way with an 18.3 percent increase over a year ago, with sales of the redesigned Rogue small SUV up almost 27 percent. Chrysler posted a 14 percent gain, bolstered by a big jump in sales of Jeep SUVs. Both companies reported record April sales. Toyota sales grew by 13 percent, led by a double-digit gain in truck sales.
General Motors, which has experienced bad publicity from a string of safety recalls, posted a 7 percent gain, led by the Buick Encore small SUV and the Chevy Silverado pickup. GM, the nation’s largest automaker, reported sales of 254,076. Hyundai sales rose a little more than 4 percent on strong SUV sales.
Analysts are expecting an industry-wide sales gain of at least 8.5 percent compared with last April. That would mark the best April since 2005.
But there were some soft spots.
Ford’s sales fell 1 percent. Its car sales sputtered, although sales of its F-Series pickups, the best-selling line in the U.S., rose 7.4 percent. Sales at Volkswagen dropped 8.4 percent.
U.S. consumers bought 15.6 million new cars and trucks in 2013. The industry entered 2014 with expectations of selling more than 16 million cars for the first time since 2007. But sales dropped 3 percent in January and were flat in February. March started slowly, but finished with a flourish.
“Sales momentum from March rolled into April, pushing the industry to its best back-toback monthly sales pace since fall of 2007,” Toyota Vice President Bill Fay said in a statement.
Deliveries of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup rose 8.5 percent while GMC Sierra truck deliveries increased 21 percent. Deliveries of GM’s large sport utility vehicles, including the Chevrolet Tahoe, gained 22 percent, the Detroit-based company said in an emailed statement.
For Chrysler, Jeep brand sales increased 52 percent, the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker said Thursday in a statement. Chrysler’s results were hurt by a 26 percent drop for the compact Dart. Ram pickup sales rose 17 percent to 36,674.
“Strong consumer demand for our Jeep sport-utility vehicles and Ram pickup trucks continued in April,” Reid Bigland, Chrysler’s U.S. sales chief, said in the statement.
Fiat SpA-owned Chrysler forecast an annual industry sales pace of 16.3 million, including medium-duty and heavy trucks, which typically account for at least 200,000 sales a year. GM said the pace may be 16.1 million, excluding medium- and heavy duty trucks.
Dodge brand sales rose by 50 to 53,463 in April, hurt by the Dart and outgoing Avenger, the company said Thursday . Fiat sales rose 10 percent to 4,298 deliveries.
Analysts expect that April’s industry sales pace was slightly slower than the rate in March, but should still translate into full-year sales of more than 16 million cars and trucks.
“It appears we are in a more stable environment, and the sun is shining,” said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst for Cars.com. Toprak expects April sales to have risen 9 percent or 10 percent over a year ago and run at an annual rate of 16.2 million.
Information for this article was contributed by Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher of the Associated Press and Mark Clothier and Tim Higgins of Bloomberg News.
Business, Pages 31 on 05/02/2014