GM pulls ahead of Toyota; AUTOMOTIVE.

General Motors recovered some lost ground to pull ahead of arch rival Toyota in global sales in the second quarter of this year, figures released yesterday showed.

But the resurgent Detroit-based group, whose European brands include Vauxhall, Opel and Saab, remained in second place over the first six months of the year.

GM said it sold 2.41 million vehicles worldwide in the April-June period, while Toyota said it sold 2.37 million. Toyota overtook GM for the first time in the first quarter of 2007 with sales of 2.35 million versus 2.27 million. And for the first half of the year, Toyota's reported that its global sales totaled 4.72 million compared with GM's 4.67 million.

GM said strong growth in Latin America, Asia and other emerging markets lifted its global sales by 0.4 per cent from 2006's second quarter total of 2.40 million.

"We're on track to have our second-best annual sales performance in our almost 100-year history," John Middlebrook, GM's vice president for global sales, said in a statement release yesterday.