After the disastrous 2008/9, both Ford and Chrysler showed some very positive gains. Ford was up 19 percent, Chrysler up 17 percent and GM was also up but only six percent.
Ford was very up-beat as it had expanded US market share for the second year in a row with total sales of 1.9 million vehicles. This was Ford’s first back-to-back market share increase since 1993 and came after some years of restructuring at head office Dearborn.
Unlike General Motors and Chrysler – which were forced into bankruptcy in 2009 – Ford managed to survive the 2008 financial crisis without government aid during the economic downturn.
Chrysler attributed its solid gains to the business plan developed by Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne, who took the helm after Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009. Part of that was dropping models with dwindling sales and launching 16 new or improved models in the last quarter of 2010.
