Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. outsold Ford Motor Co. in July to rank as the No. 2 automaker in the U.S. for the first time, helping Asia-based companies win record market share as buyers shift to fuel-efficient models.

Toyota, which trails only General Motors Corp. in global sales, sold 241,826 vehicles in the U.S., up 12 percent from a year earlier, and 427 more than Ford. Gains of 6 percent for Honda Motor Co. and 6.2 percent for Hyundai Motor Co. helped the Asian companies boost their market share to 41.4 percent from 33.1 percent a year earlier, according to Bloomberg data.

``It's a different world. GM by itself used to have half the U.S. market,'' said Walter McManus, director of the University of Michigan's Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation. ``Sales are being driven by fuel costs, fuel efficiency, passenger cars. Toyota, and Honda to a lesser extent, added trucks but kept solid portfolios of cars.''

Toyota has benefited this year from demand for fuel- efficient cars such as the Corolla and Scion models and RAV4 small sport-utility vehicles as gasoline prices have stayed near $3 a gallon. As Toyota prepares to add capacity to build about 500,000 more cars and trucks in North America, GM and Ford are cutting a combined 60,000 U.S. union jobs and closing 26 locations to try and halt losses in the region.

JUMBO--let's look at an Hyundai or a Kia in 5 years and see if the thing is still screwed together. Hell, some of the domestics can make a decent car OFF THE LINE, but they are rattletraps in 3 months.