General Motors is back on the race track.
Freed at last of its crippling debt, GM brought home its first profit in three years and plans to reopen nearly 700 shuttered showrooms for its anticipated comeback.
The company said it earned $865 million in the first quarter, helped by a 40 percent jump in revenue due to selling more vehicles while giving back smaller rebates and discounts to customers.
A year ago, GM posted a $6 billion loss in the first quarter just prior to it filing for bankruptcy, which helped shed billions in debts and other liabilities.
GM said it generated $1 billion in free cash flow in the first quarter. It has more than doubled its cash hoard to $35.7 billion following a disastrous year in which the feds bailed it out with $50 billion, in exchange for a 61 percent stake.
CEO Ed Whitacre said the profit momentum will enable GM to set the stage for selling new shares to the public to raise cash for swapping back Uncle Sam’s stake.
GM last month repaid the balance of its $8.2 billion in separate direct loans from the US Treasury and Canadian government.
Its US showrooms sold 16.8 percent more vehicles in the first quarter than the prior year’s period, or 475,253 vehicles vs. 406,770 a year earlier.
Aiding the profit jump was a cutback in US discounts for customers, which were slashed by an average of $230 per vehicle, or 6.7 percent, to about $3,222, said Autodata.
GM plans to reopen at least 666 dealerships that were closed in the crisis last year.
The Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer models were also eliminated to cut costs. Its Opel brand had been on the block but was taken off.
Separately, the US Treasury announced that Chrysler Holding paid back $1.9 billion to Uncle Sam, more than half the outstanding amount the government lent the carmaker just before it filed for bankruptcy. paul.tharp@nypost.com