#April2013

Now that you know everything about the Top 200 best-selling models in the world, it’s time to snap back to April and have a close look to Europe.

Surprise surprise number 1: Sales are up for the first time in 19 months…

Surprise surprise number 2: For the first time since the launch of the nameplate in 1996, the Audi A3 is among the 10 most popular models on the continent.

More detail after the jump…

Chevy Cruze in Beijing

While GM’s head-flack Selim Bingol was swearing at Ed Niedermeyer, and that it’s not true that GM is sending its money to China, GM’s Chinese operation again outsold America. GM China sold 261,870 units in April, up 15.3%. In the U.S., GM sold 237,646 in April. In the first four months of the year, GM sold 821,707 vehicles stateside. Meanwhile in China, it sold 1,078,243.

We already thought Bloomberg might have abandoned its monthly analyst poll. We could not find one for March, and finally found one for April – after a lot of looking. It would have been a shame if the table would have gone AWOL. This month, the race was extremely tight, and most analysts – at least the ones who had the guts to make forecasts for the D3 and not just for the SAAR – came very close to the actuals.

The situation in Europe is so desperate that a 5.2 percent drop of French car sales in April gave reason to rejoice. “The plunge seems to be halting after the double-digit declines of previous months,” Francois Roudier, spokesman of the French CCFA industry association, told Reuters.

April is Detroit month. Strong sales of pickups and crossovers bring double digit gains to Detroit while other brands lag. Final table, courtesy of Automotive New [sub].

April sales in Japan were up 1.5 percent in April, with sales of kei cars lagging behind resurging regular cars while imports surprise.

When automakers report U.S. April sales tomorrow, they will be up strongly for the sixth month in a row. The U.S. auto industry’s annual selling rate will be 15.25 million vehicles in April, according to economists polled by Thomson Reuters. Here is why: