WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. -

Though the overwhelming majority of brands across the spectrum showed certified pre-owned growth, 2013 was an especially promising year in the CPO business for domestic automakers.

The Big 3 grabbed an additional 2.3 points of CPO market share in 2013 and lifted their full-year certified sales by nearly 24 percent, according to preliminary industry results released earlier this week by Autodata Corp.

All told, the respective CPO programs within Chrysler, Ford and General Motors combined to sell 713,516 certified vehicles last year, up 23.6 percent from the 2012 total.

GM led the way, as its Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Pontiac and Saturn brands combined to sell 344,025 certified units last year, which was good for a 25-percent gain. Cadillac CPO sales reached 18,397 units (up 10.8 percent).

Chrysler moved 123,326 CPO units for a 9.2-percent hike. Its Jeep brand was up 12.5 percent with 41,392 certified sales and its Chrysler division moved 25,185 CPO units for a 12.2-percent hike.

Dodge improved its CPO numbers by 5.7 percent, selling 56,749 units.

Ford, meanwhile, had its best year ever for CPO, according to Autodata. Its Ford/Mercury and Lincoln programs combined to sell 227,755 vehicles for a 32-percent year-over-year hike.

Interestingly enough, the 172,536 certified vehicles Ford sold in 2012 was the automaker’s second strongest year ever at the time, and also a six-year high.

Auto Remarketing caught up with Todd Fites, Ford’s national CPO sales manager, shortly after the end of the third quarter of 2013.

“The key to our success these last two years is that our Ford and Lincoln dealers have a competitive program — and I would underscore the involvement that our dealer council played in revamping our program. They were very much at the forefront of helping us develop a more competitive program,” Fites told Auto Remarketing in October.

“We worked with the dealer council to come up with the right set of benefits to make our program fully competitive in the industry,” Fites said. “We continue to believe that we have the best dealer body in the industry, and the CPO sales growth these last two years is a key proof point that backs up that statement.”

The automaker knew that giving its dealer body “a competitive set of tools and a program like we have today” would lead to quick results, Fites said.

“That’s exactly what’s happened,” he added.