Toyota, GM In Tie for Top Automaker

Toyota has finally caught up with GM, after years of growing roughly five times as fast. GM’s sales rose 3% in 2007, to 9,369,524 vehicles, but it was only enough to tie Toyota, which last week announced sales of approximately 9.37 million, ending GM’s 76-year reign  atop the world’s automakers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Since 2000, GM’s US sales have fallen 22%, while Toyota’s have surged 61%, to wrench second place away from Ford. To compensate, GM has been expanding overseas; international sales made up 59% of its 2007 total. The race looks poised to go Toyota’s way, since the Japanese company predicts 5% growth in 2008. (More General Motors stories.)