Toyota leads Japan's 1.7% vehicle sales gain

Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's largest automaker, led a 1.7 per cent gain in domestic vehicle sales, the first in 13 months, as automakers increased supply. Sales of cars, trucks and buses, excluding minicars, rose to 313,790 vehicles in September, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said in a statement yesterday. Toyota sold 131,072 vehicles, excluding Lexus-brand cars, up 0.7 per cent from a year earlier. Demand recovered after dropping since the government ended subsidies for fuel-efficient cars in September 2010. Sales were helped by an increase in the supply of vehicles, as production recovered from disruptions in the wake of Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said Michiro Saito, a spokesman for the dealers association. Monthly deliveries at Nissan Motor Co fell 7.7 per cent to 53,427 vehicles last month.