www

2:00pm -- Paul Ballew, GM's global sales exec, takes the reigns of the call. We're underway. Some August 2007 highlights for GM:

• GM saw a surprising 5% total sales increase for U.S. August sales, led by full-size trucks and the newer crossover vehicles.
• The GMC division had sales up 21% from the year-ago period, and the Chevy brand was up almost 9% for the month.

2:02pm -- GM dealers in the United States delivered 388,168 vehicles in August in a strong performance that resulted in an anticipated highest-of-the-year market share of nearly 26%. Wow -- GM apparently killed it all when it came to August sales. This call should be interesting as we delve deeper into the reasons for this.

2:05pm -- Overall incentive spending was flat compared with a year ago for GM. August inventories were down about 34,000 vehicles to approximately 945,000 vehicles at the end of the month.

2:07pm -- From GM's August sales press release: a recent study ranked Buick number one (tied with Lexus) in vehicle dependability. Another customer service survey has every GM brand above the industry average score - better than Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Ford and Land Rover.

2:09pm -- From GM: "August performance shows we're hitting the sweet spot on truck programs, and our award-winning Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups are making important contributions on the retail side," LaNeve added. "Importantly, these vehicles contributed a 30-percent increase in full-size pickup retail sales, with Sierra kicking in more than 22,500 retail sales in the month. We are also pleased with the ongoing success of the GMC Acadia, Saturn OUTLOOK and Buick Enclave."

2:11pm -- Ballew is still going over GM's impressive August results, and he's talking about the huge success of the GMC Adadia and the Buick Enclave, which is GM's highest-turning vehicle in terms of inventories across the entire GM product portfolio.

2:13pm -- Ballew is talking about GM's surprising success in selling full-size trucks in August, which was the same month that the automaker said it would cut truck product back a decent amount to get nationwide dealer inventories back on track.

2:15pm -- Ballew concludes his remarks and opens the call up to Q&A. First question: the 4th quarter production schedule was scaled back. Is GM just being conservative here? Answer: not really, just adjustment based on changing conditions and changes in attitudes about GM's incentives for retail consumers.

2:19pm -- next question: what was the incentive mix for August, since it appeared to be up? Answer: GM used cash and APR incentives in August, with truck incentives going up in August. In response to competitors, GM actually saw a drop of a few hundred bucks in August all things considered.

2:25pm -- next question: what is GM's current inventory breakdown? Answer: 675,000 trucks are in the distribution channel at this moment, with about 169,000 vehicles on the car side.

2:29pm -- next question: economic softness this year and next -- how so? Answer: GM has not given industry guidance for 2008 yet, and it wants to see how certain factors play out during the rest of the year before it gives this kind of projection.

2:32pm -- next question: how are the smaller crossovers faring against the midsize utility vehicles? So far, the smaller SUVs are doing better, but they've also been around longer and have more consumer recognition.

2:35pm -- we're done with the analyst Q&A. Next up is the media Q&A. First question: in the average incentive spending amount of $400 in August, how much did the truck segment contribute? Answer: about half, but final, specific figures are not available yet.

2:38pm -- next question: will GM increase incentive spending in the back half of 2007 to determine what sales lift that may have, and if so, how much would the amount be in an average per vehicle amount? Answer: hard to say, since GM is selling many vehicles quite well with reduced incentives based on a year over year comparison.

2:44pm -- that's it. Ballew closes with a few remaining remarks about GM's significant increase in overall sales volume in August, and we are done. GM fooled me and some others in seeing a decent sales increase here, probably at the expense of Ford (among others). Will it continue standing up to Toyota the rest of the year? We'll see.