Europe’s largest is now worlds largest! Volkswagen group has overtaken Toyota to becomes the world’s largest car manufacturer. The company produced 4.4 million cars this year in the first nine months compared to 4 million units by Toyota Motor Corp.

The German manufacture also benefited from various government measures to prop up demand in China, Germany and UK in the wake of the global economic downturn. The company registered an impressive sales growth of 34% YOY globally and even after the ending of the scrappage scheme VW has continued to register 26.1 percent growth in its home country of Germany.

VW had initially projected this target to be achieved by the year 2018 but has surpassed the initial project in 2009 itself aided by Toyota’s decision to halve its output in the first quarter of the year. Toyota slahed the output from 2.1 Million cars in the first quarter to 1.1 million.

Toyota now ranks second worldwide while Ford Motor Company holds the third position in the list of world’s largest automakers. General Motors follows the top three with 3.6 million units produced worldwide.