DETROIT - With all the buzz generated by the Saturn Aura, Ford Edge and four-door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, casual observers might think they’d be the industry’s best-sellers. But these models are far from the top of the sales list.

So why all the hype?

Such "buzz" vehicles are the hopeful cornerstones of brands in transition. While pickups continue to be the Detroit automakers’ top sellers, demand for smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles is growing with increasing fuel prices and concern about the harmful effects of greenhouse gases. The latest buzz vehicles address those changing demands in some respects.

And when they’re successful - by drawing attention to new designs or marking an entrance into a vehicle segment - they can reinvigorate a brand.

"They are standard bearers for those brands and represent what those brands are about," said Jack Nerad, executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book. "They’re game-changers for brands trying to redefine themselves."

Hence, the latest buzz vehicles for the Detroit brands are midsize cars, fuel-efficient hybrids, crossovers and a small SUV, as the companies work to rebuild reputations by offering high-style, high-quality, fuel-efficient passenger vehicles that can compete against Toyota and Honda.

By contrast, the Toyota vehicle getting the most buzz is its newly redesigned Toyota Tundra. The Tundra is important to Toyota, whose Camry is the top-selling U.S. passenger car, as the automaker strives to prove it can compete in all market segments.

A lot hinges on the success of buzz vehicles - brand image, dealer showroom traffic and the careers of the professionals that work on them - though how automakers judge the success of the new models is often different from how they judge the success of their high-volume bread-and-butter vehicles, the Detroit manufacturers’ trucks and Japanese manufacturers’ cars.

Among the examples:

● General Motors sold 4,323 of the Aura sedan last month, compared with 49,436 Chevrolet Silverado pickups.

● Ford sold 9,134 Edge crossovers in April, compared with 56,692 F-series pickups.

● Chrysler Group sold 10,776 Wranglers, compared with 31,503 Dodge Rams.

● Toyota sold 14,200 Tundras vs. 37,911 Camrys.

Analysts estimate that the average profit on smaller vehicles is a few hundred dollars, compared with estimates that pickups and large SUVs can generate profits of $2,000 to $9,000. The automakers don’t share their per-vehicle profit margins.

The Saturn Aura, named North American Car of the Year at the Detroit auto show in January, isn’t likely to sell in the same volume as GM’s pickups. GM sold nearly 850,000 large pickups last year. In the same year, the entire Saturn brand sold 226,375 vehicles. But the Aura does reinsert the Saturn brand into the midsize sedan segment, and Saturn’s sales are up almost 20 percent so far this year.

Buzz cars also are expected to help boost overall brand sales by attracting customers to other vehicles in the brand lineups as they hint at what’s to come.

That’s especially important for brands such as Saturn that are sold in single-brand stores.

"The midsize segment is an incredibly important segment for this brand," Saturn Marketing Manager Matt Armstrong said. "It helps us, too, as we extend our portfolio into utility vehicles."

Boosting sales of an entire brand is a common goal for buzz vehicles, analysts said.

At Chrysler, the first four-door version of its iconic Jeep Wrangler has been a bigger hit than the company expected, currently constricted in sales only by its production capacity, analysts say.

The last widely acknowledged game-changer at Chrysler was the 300C sedan, which catapulted designer Ralph Gilles to cult status in the world of automotive design - and within the company to vice president, with responsibility for the look of Chrysler’s crown jewels: Jeep, minivans and Dodge Ram pickups.

Chrysler sold 9,136 of all versions of the 300 last month and just over 143,000 last year.

Association with a breakthrough vehicle has launched many an automotive career. Lee Iacocca, credited as the mastermind behind the Ford Mustang, eventually rose to president of Ford Motor and chairman of Chrysler Corp. A number of product hits have made GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who has worked at every Detroit automaker, a revered product chief.

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