• by Karl Greenberg , August 1, 2013

Up, up and away... sales keep rising for cars and trucks. It was another good one as Nissan, Chrysler, Ford, Mazda, Kia, Porsche, Hyundai, General Motors, Honda, Acura, and others posted records -- and big gains for the month. The only automaker heading the other way was Volkswagen. 

Ford had its best July in retail sales since 2005, up 19% versus the month last year -- with cars up 13%, utilities up 19%, and trucks up 27%. The company said it saw strong growth in the ever-important coastal states. 

General Motors reportedsales up 16% compared with a year ago, with retail sales increasing 23% while fleet sales declined 6%. Chevrolet cars were up 31%. Thanks to the divisions' bookend cars ATS and XTS Cadillac, car sales were up 34%. Pickups were strong, with Silverado and Sierra benefitting from demand.  

Chrysler Group LLC reported its best July since 2006, with U.S. sales of 140,102 units -- an 11% increase versus last year. Not surprisingly, given the truck trend, Ram Truck saw a 31% increase, which the company said was the largest sales gain of any Chrysler Group brand last month. 

Honda saw big gains in mid-size segments and crossovers, with sales for both Honda and Acura up over 20%. The automaker broke a 13-year record for Civic and reported that both Civic and Accord broke 30,000 units each for the month. 

Nissan Motor set a new July record of 109,041 vehicles delivered, an increase of 10.9% over last July. The company said the Nissan Division set a new July record with 101,279 sales -- up 16.8%, led by Altima, Versa, Pathfinder and Rogue. 

Toyota has some bragging rights, as its sales volume increase of 12.6% helped make Toyota Division the top retail auto brand in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive month. Camry was the best-selling car in America, with the best July since 2010. And hybrid sales -- heavily represented by the Prius lineup -- increased about 37%, with hybrids owning over 60% market share in spite of incursions from vehicles like Ford's C-Max. 

Alec Gutierrez, senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, said sales are being driven by demand for full-size pickups and small CUVs -- "although small cars have cropped up as another segment to watch due to the impact of rising summer gas prices.”  

He says Toyota’s growth was consistent across most of their major product offerings, with subcompact Yaris and Prius leading with gains in excess of 30% each. The redesigned Avalon improved 200%, and the Lexus ES and IS improved by close to 60%.  

Edmunds senior analyst Jessica Caldwell said the Toyota Camry's status as the top-selling midsize car this month was partly driven by incentives -- which are the highest they have been in nearly two years and four times more than Honda Accord.