Nationwide, USA - Despite the perception presented in videos and street chatter, Lexus, Mercedes Benz and BMW don't even show up in the "Black Top Ten" of cars. Toyota is proving to be the most popular brand with African Americans according to a report in USA Today. Good news for the automaker since the percentage increase of new car sales to blacks last year was a lot higher than the increase for whites, says research firm Polk.

Toyota's mechanical issues in the last year saw the automakers sales take a dip but then rebound.

African Americans registered 641,090 vehicles last year, an increase of 11.5% over 2009. Those registrations amounted to 7.4% of all new vehicle registrations in 2010. The research firm says Blacks bought Toyotas some 15% of the time last year, well ahead of second-place Ford and third-place Chevrolet, Polk found.

Other brands are rising fast in popularity with African Americans. They include Buick, Hyundai, Kia, Cadillac, GMC and Infiniti. Marc Bland, product strategist at Polk told the paper "With the U.S. population growing faster in the African-American segment ... there's a significant opportunity for automotive manufacturers and dealers to begin to align marketing initiatives toward this specific audience,"

Here's the brand percentage for the African-American market:

* Toyota 15.0%

* Ford 11.7%

* Chevrolet 11.4%

* Honda 11.3%

* Nissan 10.2%

* Hyundai 5.6%

* Kia 4.2%

* Dodge 4.0%

* GMC 2.8%

* Volkswagen 2.2%

Polk says Acura, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, all luxury brands, are not growing their share of the African-American market as fast as the overall market.