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Demand for trucks, SUVs drives up February sales

Car dealership photo
flickr.com

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.