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Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki Top July Gainers

Orange County automakers posted solid sales gains in July,for the most part.

Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America said Tuesday its U.S. sales rose 11% to 44,431 in July.

The company, a unit of South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co., sold 40,125 cars and trucks a year ago.

Irvine-based Kia Motors America posted a 10.2% increase in July auto sales to 26,052 autos, up from 23,637 a year earlier.

Kia, part of Kia Motors Corp. in South Korea, said the July numbers were the best U.S. results ever. Hyundai Motor and other Hyundai units own a majority of Kia, which is run independently.

Irvine’s Mazda North American Operations, a unit of Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp., sold 24,820 autos in July, up 9.7% from a year earlier.

Mazda’s truck sales fell 23.2% to 5,739 in July, but car sales jumped 26% to 19,081 from a year earlier.

Brea-based American Suzuki Motor Corp., the U.S. arm of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp., said its July sales were up 14% to 7,125 autos in the month.

The laggards included Mitsibushi Motors North America Inc. and Volvo Cars of North America LLC.

Cypress-based Mitsubishi said it sold 10,376 vehicles in July, down 7.3% from the year-ago period. But the automaker said July was the first month that dealer sales topped 10,000 since last August.

Mitsubishi said strong sales for its 2006 Eclipse helped spur overall gains.

A unit of Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the automaker has been struggling to reverse slumping sales for the past year. Part of the recent decline has come from a planned cutback in sales to rental agencies.

The automaker grew fast here from 1998 to 2002 but saw its strategy of easy credit and marketing to younger drivers backfire three years ago in the form of bad loans.

Meanwhile, Volvo, a unit of Ford Motor Co.’s Irvine-based Premiere Automotive Group, saw its July sales drop 6.3% to 11,511.

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