April Sales: Ze Germans: VW Up 42%, Audi Up 33%, Mercedes Up 21%, BMW Up 9%

The Volkswagen brand grew sales across all nameplates other than the Chrysler-rebadge Routan minivan, en route to a 42 percent overall volume increase. Audi maintained its momentum, with a 33 percent improvement over its 2009 sales, on strong sales from the A5 and Q5. The new E-Class drove the Mercedes brand to a 21 percent improvement, although Smart was down nearly 50 percent to 680 units. Despite 50+ percent drops in 5- and 6-Series volume, BMW managed to hang onto a nine percent volume increase, including a five percent improvement by the MINI brand. Ze Germans may be focused on China in the long term, but for now they’re back to methodically growing their US-market business.

VW saw strong increases in Golf/Rabbit/GTI numbers, recording a cumulative 159 percent increase to 2,828 units. Jetta improved by over 100 percent as well, and even recent weak sellers like the Eos, Touareg and Passat recorded year-over-year improvements. VW may still be a long way from the million annual units it’s looking for, but it’s headed in the right direction.

Audi’s biggest seller in terms of volume was the Q5, but the A5 logged the largest percentage improvement (up 171 percent). Lower-volume sellers like the A3, TT and R8 saw modest improvements, while the A6 clawed back from a weak April 2009, to a mediocre 796 units (compared to the new Mercedes E-Class’s 4,528 units). Q7 and A8 were down slightly, as Audi waits for its new flagship A8 to make its way to dealerships.

Mercedes didn’t break out a by-nameplate sales chart this month, revealing only that the C-Class sold 4,624 units, the E-Class sold 4,528 and the M-Class sold 2,269 units. Oh, and Smart sold 680.

BMW‘s new Z4 pulled off the brand’s largest percentage improvement, bringing sales from just 23 in April 09 to 232 units. 5-Series sales dropped in half to 2,067 units, while 3-Series improved 45 percent to 8,712 units. The new 7-Series jumped 96 percent to 1,555, and the X5 held steady at about 2k units. All MINI nameplates saw single-digit percentage improvements, with total volume hitting 3,843 units for a 5.1 percent brand increase.

Porsche’s sales declined by nearly 6 percent.