February sales figures are all in now and Ford came out the winner with a 43% increase in sales over February 2009. What’s more, Ford managed to edge out GM for the first time since . . . well, it’s been a long, long time. The totals: 142,006 for Ford vs. 141,535 for the new GM.

Toyota, not surprisingly, saw a decline of 9%, though, given the recall turmoil, many experts were expecting an even bigger drop. Subaru and Nissan posted nice gains at 38% and 29% respectively while Honda showed a more modest increase of 13%.

Chrysler sales were essentially flat with an increase of barely 400 units over last year. While up is always better than down, Chrysler will need to come on much stronger than this if it is to meet targets set by Fiat chief Marchionne for 2010. With few fresh products planned until late in the year, it seems unlikely that its numbers will look much better in coming months.

The biggest losers? Smart dropped by nearly 69% and Suzuki was off 61%. One has to wonder if the market for the Smart ForTwo was more limited than parent company Daimler thought and has already saturated. Suzuki has been trying hard to raise its profile in the U.S. market with products such as the new and well-received Kizashi but, apparently, to no avail. With its strength in other markets, most notably India, one wonders how much longer Suzuki will keep trying to establish a foothold here.

--M.D.