Though it means less in today’s market than it did a year ago, Ford moved more vehicles in the month of April than Japanese juggernaut Toyota for the first time in over a year. Looking at the numbers, all this means is that Ford managed keep its sales from dropping lower than Toyota’s for the month. The real test will be to see if Ford can make this feat a trend.

Ford sold 129, 898 units last month, including the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury divisions, but excluding Volvo. Compared with last year, that’s a sales drop of 31 percent. The drop can be attributed to any Ford truck or SUV of your choosing, but the most likely culprits are the Ford Expedition (down 72 percent for the month, 70 percent year-to-date), the Ford Explorer (down 49 percent for the month and 60 percent year-to-date) and the F-series (down 35.8 percent for April and 42 percent year-to-date).

Cue the refreshed 2010 Ford Fusion. The midsized sedan saw sales rise 21.7 percent compared with April 2008, to 18,321 units. We’ll have to wait a few months to see if this sales bump is long-lasting, or just the normal sales bump that follows most car redesigns.

Meanwhile, Toyota sold 126,540 cars under its Toyota, Lexus and Scion divisions in April, a drop of 41.9 percent compared with last year. The industry average decline was 37.4 percent. The Avalon, Prius, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser, Sequoia and Tundra all had declines of more than 50 percent compared to April 2008. Though Camry sales were down 36.7 percent last month, Toyota sold 7003 more units of its midsized sedan than Ford sold of the Fusion, emphasizing just how far Ford still has to go in that segment.

We’ll have to wait until the beginning of next month to see if this is just a temporary shakeup, or if Ford will emerge as true competition for the world’s largest automaker.

Source: Automotive News and Automobilemag.com