A 76-Year Record Shattered?

Waiting breathlessly for Toyota to surpass General Motors as the world's biggest automaker?

Time to exhale.

Automotive News (subscription required) says it happened last year, by a whisker.

The authoritative weekly trade paper said Toyota sold 128,000 more vehicles than G.M. did in 2006, if one excludes sales of cars and trucks by affiliated automakers in which each company owned only a minority stake.

Automotive News estimated Toyota sold 8,808,000 vehicles worldwide in 2006, compared with 8,679,860 for G.M. General Motors has claimed the global No. 1 spot since 1931, and maintains that it held onto the ranking last year.

Not so, says the News. G.M. claimed the top spot by including 420,140 microvans made by a Chinese joint venture in which the American automaker owns only a minority stake. Automotive News credits those sales to Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., which owns 51 percent of the venture.

"A little-known Chinese microvan played a role in Toyota's victory," the paper said.

by Mark Stein