What's Selling These Days: Models that are moving

A few rays of sunshine are peeking through the generally dismal U.S. car market this year.

Three brands have shown remarkable resilience in the face of staggering losses by competitors in 2009: Hyundai (up 4.9pct for February) and its corporate sister Kia (up 1.9pct), plus Subaru (posting a 4.5pct gain) and Mercedes-Benz subsidiary smart, up 28.5pct in February.

Hyundai is led by two of its low cost models - the Elantra which sold 8,978 units, up 33pct, and the under-$10k Assent with 4,334 sold, up 30pct. The company, including Kia, has made the most of its advertising opportunities, flooding both the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards with commercials touting its industry-best warranty program which includes the attention-grabbing if-you-lose-your-job-we'll-take-your-car-back-as-opposed-to-repossessing-it guarantee.

According to Subaru marketing folk, many of the brand's return customers are little influenced by trends. The practical Forester showed more than a 100pct sales jump in February.

All models of the smart fortwo urban warrior have been selling like hotcakes. Since November, however, a number of customers who placed deposits on a smart, backed out of the deal. The company very smartly placed the orphaned fortwos into its Smart Express sales program where new customers could snare a car without the delivery wait.

Sales success stories for other single models has been more problematic. Models from the same manufacturer have shown divergent interest among buyers for reasons that are not always clear.

For example, Audi's A5 and S5 coupe sold 28.6pct more units in February than in Feb '08. In that same month, Audi sales overall were down nearly 25pct, led by the A8 (off 67.5pct), the A3 (down 51.6pct) and the A6 (47.5pct). It's certainly not price, as the 5s fall mid-MSRP for the German automaker.

Truly, price appears to have little to do with recent sales successes. Among the pricier models with significant bumps in February sales over last year were the Porsche 911 Carrera GT3 (up 17.3pct) and the Mercedes Benz SL class (up 26.6pct). Other luxury models experienced similar sales success: Mercedes Benz CLK class (up 15.4pct) and the Porsche Boxster (up a whopping 127.4pct).

Mercury's mid-market Sable and Montego saw sales up 35.5pct while its parent company Ford was experiencing a nearly 50pct plunge. The same scenario was happening at GM where the Saturn sold 30.3pct more Astras than in Feb '08 while the General was down more than 50pct. Other individual model successes were posted by the Jeep Wrangler (up 28.2pct), the Infiniti FX (21.4pct) and the Lexus RX 400h (30.8pct).

The bottom line is that it's a buyers market and buyers are making very critical decisions that automakers must factor into plans for future models and winnowing of current lines.