General Motors and Ford capped off a comeback year for the US car industry, on Tuesday reporting strong sales in the year's final month, according to dpa. General Motors recorded 224,185 vehicle sales in the holiday month of December, a 7.5-per-cent increase in vehicle sales compared to the same month a year earlier. The monthly gain brought total sales last year for the largest US carmaker to 2.22 million, up 6.3 per cent from 2009, the year that GM went through a managed bankruptcy and was effectively nationalized by the US government. Ford, the only one of the United States' three major carmaker to avoid bankruptcy in 2009, reported vehicle sales of 190,976 for the month of December, up 6.7 per cent from the same month a year earlier. Total sales for 2010 jumped 19.4 per cent to 1.94 million. GM's December sales included a 15.5-per-cent increase for the four core brands - Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC - that the Detroit- based manufacturer hopes will revive its flagging fortunes in the coming years. Four other brands - Saab, Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn - are being wound down. GM returned to the stock market to much fanfare in November as it continues to pull itself out of the shadow of government control.
