DETROIT, Michigan (AP):

WITH A model line-up that consumers love, Toyota Motor Corp. continued to take market share from other automakers last month, posting an industry-best 17 per cent increase in sales.

The company's success, which it attributes to fuel efficiency in times of high gasolene prices, comes at the expense of Detroit's Big Three, even though General Motors Corp. posted a sales increase and Ford Motor Company reclaimed the number two sales spot in August.

The Japanese automaker's share of the U.S. market rose to 16.1 per cent for the month as consumers continued their shift toward cars and away from trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUV). That's up from 13.8 per cent a year ago.

"It's like they're in a different market," Burnham Securities analyst David Healy said.

Falling market share

GM was the only domestic manufacturer to see its market share increase to 24.4 per cent, from 23.6 per cent in August of last year.

Ford's market share dropped more than two percentage points to 17.1 per cent, from 19.4 per cent in August 2005.

DaimlerChrysler AG's share was 13.4 per cent last month, down from 13.9 per cent a year ago.

Ford said it sold 253,976 cars and light trucks in August, a drop of 11.6 per cent compared with last August, while GM posted a 3.9 per cent gain.

DaimlerChrysler's sales dropped 3.2 per cent, and even Honda Motor Company, which had been seeing gains, dropped 3.2 per cent, according to Autodata Corp.

During the first eight months of the year, consumers have bought roughly 11.4 million cars and trucks, about 4 per cent fewer than the same period last year.

Hurting the domestics

August sales were about the same as the year before.

The declining sales and market trends are hurting the domestics more than foreign manufacturers, said Jesse Toprak, chief economist for Edmunds.com, an automotive website.

SUV sales dropped 14 per cent in August, while sales of compact cars went up 18 per cent, a sign that the shift is continuing, Toprak said.

"The domestics have a much heavier reliance on SUVs and trucks for their bottom-line profits," he said.

Toyota's U.S. sales passed Ford in July for the first time ever, and Toyota said gasolene prices continued to drive consumers to its showrooms in August, when it sold 240,178 vehicles, up from 205,362 in the same month a year ago.