MARQUETTE --

With gas prices on the rise, so are the sales of smaller, more fuel efficient cars in America.

Small cars currently make up 20 percent of the national market share.  But Marquette dealers say this national trend hasn't hit locally, and when it comes to vehicles in the U.P., bigger seems to be better.

"We can't keep a new pickup truck in stock or a used pickup truck in stock," said Public Service Garage general sales manager, Garry Tollefson.

At Public Service Garage, out of the 28 used vehicles they've sold this month, 19 of them were trucks or SUVs.

"Yukons and Tahoes and Yukon X-Ls are a very popular vehicle in the U.P.," Tollefson said.  "Not only are they safe, but most of them are four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive."

That's an important feature to have in the harsh winters here in the U.P.  Another dealer, Fox Marquette, says they've sold so many SUVs in the last several months that they're now low on inventory. They say 65 percent of their sales over the last month have been full-size vehicles.

"Truthfully, I think we have a different breed of customer here," said Fox General Manager, Randy Norton. "They buy the vehicle that suits their needs."

Both dealerships said that the only time they saw a spike in smaller car sales was during 'cash for clunkers', but even then, SUV sales reigned supreme.