Ford, GM, Toyota: On the Road to Recovery

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Despite the terrible weather and Toyota's(TM) massive recall debacles, overall sales volume in the auto industry turned out impressively this February, as illustrated by the following highlights.

Ford(F), for one, watched its February sales increase 43% year-over-year to 142,285 vehicles, outpacing competitor General Motors for the first time in years.

S&P equity analyst Efraim Levy believes that Ford is benefiting from a combination of troubled peers and favorable and improving brand perception. Indeed, Ford continues to look increasingly better in the eyes of consumers as recalls by its peers keep arising. Among those competitors suffering recall issues is, of course, Toyota, which has recalled about 8.5 million vehicles over sudden and rapid acceleration problems; General Motors, which has recalled 1.3 million vehicles due to power steering issues; and Chrysler, which has recalled 300,000 vehicles due to problematic airbags.

For Ford, it's a gift that just keeps on giving. On Wednesday, Nissan(NSANY) became the next automaker to issue a big recall of about 540,000 vehicles primarily in the U.S. market. The issue at hand is its brake pedal pins and fuel gauges.

Levy expects "solid market share gains for the month as both retail and fleet sales were strong" for Ford.

Ford stock has soared more than 596% in a 52-week period.

Of course, that's not to say that rival General Motors didn't also gain significant traction in February. The automaker, despite the billions of dollars it still owes taxpayers, reported an 11.5% increase year-over-year to 141,951 vehicles, while its four core brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC -- watched sales improve 32.2%.

"In my mind, the biggest winner was General Motors," David Silver of Wall Street Strategies writes in a note to investors. "It announced a 1.3 million vehicle recall but that shouldn't spoil the party for a great month. General Motors (more so than Chrysler) has come back with a vengeance."

Still, like Levy, Silver continues to consider Ford to be his favorite automaker, all around, in the industry.