Approximately a year after failures clobbered the U.S. auto industry, Detroit’s auto manufacturers are up and running again, quicker than government officials and analysts expected.

General Motors Co. paid back the last $4.7 billion in U.S. loans yesterday; Chrysler Group LLC put up a first-quarter operating profit of $143 million. Ford Motor Co., which is the only one of the trio to ward off Chapter 11, has its shares at the highest since January 2005 when it closed for today.

Brian Johnson, a Barclays Capital analyst remarked as, “All three are much improved, and it’s not fair to give all the credit to bankruptcy. In the desperate days of late 2008, they began making production cuts and product-line improvements. They’ve been remarkably restrained in incentives.”

Purported immediate-clean bankruptcies purified GM and Chrysler of responsibilities with new rapidity, stated Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of researcher Edmunds.com. Chrysler registered for court security on April 30 and got out on June 10. GM came out from bankruptcy on July 10, 39 days after entering.

Anwyl stated “Despite all the naysayer, you have to look at GM and Chrysler and say their chances of survival are markedly better because they did go through bankruptcy. And Ford benefited as the company that didn’t go through bankruptcy.”