Surprisingly strong sales of trucks and SUVs in February have brightened what is usually a lackluster month for the auto industry.
Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup jumped 17 percent from last February to more than 50,500 trucks, while Ford sold nearly 69,000 SUVs — a February record. Nissan said sales of its Rogue SUV jumped 54 percent.
Overall sales of new vehicles had been expected to fall slightly from a year ago, but some automakers performed better than industry analysts expected.
General Motors and Nissan both saw 4 percent sales gains over last February. Volkswagen's sales were up 13 percent and Honda's rose 2 percent. But Fiat Chrysler's sales fell 10 percent, hurt by declining sales of Jeeps. Toyota's sales dropped 7 percent. Ford's fell 4 percent.
Toyota's dropped 7 percent and Ford's were down 4 percent.
