(July 2009) Ford Motor Company, the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy, may be able to snag buyers as General Motors Co. ends production of the Pontiac brand this month, according to a survey, Bloomberg.com reported.

Ford was the choice of 38 percent of consumers interested in Pontiac models, CNW Marketing Research found in a June survey of 1,283 of the GM brand’s potential buyers. GM was favored by 33 percent in the survey, conducted before the Detroit-based automaker finished its bankruptcy reorganization.

The results suggest possible gains for Ford, the second- biggest U.S. automaker, after GM pared its U.S. brands to four from eight. Retaining Pontiac buyers is pivotal to GM's strategy to capture 18.5 percent of the auto market in the U.S. where the remaining marques had 16.5 percent of sales in June.

“Ford has really started to gain some attention,” CNW President  Art Spinella said in an interview yesterday from Bandon, Oregon, where the auto-research company is based. “Pontiac owners have gotten older, and they’re looking at Ford’s mainstream vehicles, like the Taurus and the Fusion.”

U.S. market share for Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford last month was 17.2 percent, excluding the Volvo car line that’s being sold. Ford is benefiting from positive reviews and quality scores on new models like the Fusion sedan as well as favorable consumer sentiment for not taking a bailout, Spinella said.

Ford’s market share may reach almost 18 percent as “a result of planning as well as the fortuitous stress” at GM and Chrysler Group LLC, which both exited bankruptcy in the past five weeks, John Murphy an analyst at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit, wrote in a report today. Murphy, based in New York, rates Ford a “buy.”

Ford marketing chief Jim Farley said the automaker is gaining buyers as “other dealers and brands are going away.”

“We are seeing incremental traffic,” Farley said. “We’ve learned that corporate reputation can be a really big driver to get people to shop your brand. A lot of people like how we’re fixing Ford on our own.”

GM has been the largest U.S. automaker by sales since 1931. Spinella said “the trend lines favor” Ford eclipsing GM by year’s end or in the first quarter of 2010.

By Keith Naughton