Cash For Clunkers Top 10 Best Sellers

Obama administration withholds data on clunkers (8/4/09 AP), but it seems the money, so far $1 billion and probably additional $2 billion, is benefiting foreign car manufacturers.

"WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is refusing to quickly release government records on its "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program that would substantiate — or undercut — White House claims of the program's success, even as the president presses the Senate for a quick vote for $2 billion to boost car sales.

"Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details on about 157,000 rebate requests, won't release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the $1 billion initially pumped into the program."

So much for transparency.

From this AP article and this from Bloomberg and this from Bestsyndication.com, here's what I've gathered:

Top-10 list (from bestsyndication.com)

1) Ford Focus
2) Toyota Corolla
3) Honda Civic
4) Toyota Prius
5) Toyota Camry
6) Ford Escape
7) Hyundai Elantra
8) Dodge Caliber
9) Honda Fit
10) Chevy Cobalt

• No. 1 in two-seater category is Daimler AG's Smart, followed by GM's Solstice (Pontiac) and Sky (Saturn).

No information whatsoever about the number of cars sold or where these cars are made (could be the U.S., could be Mexico, Canada, Brazil...).

And this is a lame comment from the White House Press Secretary yesterday (8/4):

“... the statistics that I had mentioned yesterday, I mean, 47 percent of the cars sold were from the Big Three, which was slightly larger than their current market share of 45 percent.”

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