Ben Timmins for Motor Trend:

Volkswagen’s quest to be the number one worldwide carmaker isn’t so far-fetched now: as final sales numbers come in from 2011, it looks like VW will end that year number two in the sales race.

CarAdvice reports that the German automaker delivered 8.16 million vehicles last year, up an admirable 14.3 percent from 2010. It was enough to beat Toyota’s figure by a sizable amount: the Japanese manufacturer turned over 7.9 million vehicles last year.