U.S. Car Sales Up 13% in Year; Best Since ’79

The U.S. auto industry closed the books on its best year since 1979 by reporting Friday that car sales rose 13.2% in 1984, and analysts predicted that the industry’s robust sales recovery would continue through 1985. Sales for December were up 5%.

Sales of new domestic and imported cars totaled 10.39 million units last year, up from 9.18 million in 1983 and just below the 10.7 million of 1979, widely considered to be the industry’s last good year before the recession.

“People are still buying cars, and the great auto recession of 1985 is nowhere in view,” said David Healy, automotive analyst with Drexel Burnham Lambert in New York.

The six major U.S. auto makers said they sold 7.95 million domestically built passenger cars during the year, up 17% from 1983’s sales of 6.79 million. Meanwhile, import sales rose 2.2%, from 1983’s 2.38 million units to an estimated 2.43 million last year.

Primarily because of continued restraints on Japanese imports, the foreign makes’ share of the market fell to 23.5% from 26% in 1983.

Although that was the imports’ lowest market share since 1979, total unit sales of imports were the highest in the industry’s history, partly because the ceiling on Japanese imports was raised from 1.68 million in 1983 to 1.85 million units last year.

For the month of December, car sales were up 5% from 1983. Sales of U.S.-built cars rose 4.3% in the month, while import sales rose 7%.

However, during the last 10 days of December, sales of domestic cars fell 2%.

Analysts expressed growing optimism about 1985 auto sales.

“Sales should be up a little bit in 1985, because the industry should start off the year strongly,” said John Hammond, automotive analyst with Data Resources Inc., a Lexington, Mass.-based economic forecasting firm.

Hammond expects total industry sales in 1985 of 10.6 million units, with domestic sales of 8 million and import sales of 2.6 million units.

But the still-unanswered question about sales in 1985 is whether Japanese import restraints will continue for a fifth year. The current quota program expires at the end of March and, if restraints are not extended, import sales are likely to rise.

Auto Sales

Percentage changes in auto sales for the month of December are based on daily rates rather than total sales volume, There were 25 selling days in the 1984 period and 26 selling days in the year-ago period. Total import sales are estimated based on incomplete reports.

December

1984 1983 % change GM 314,786 322,525 +1.3 Ford 150,110 139,437 +12.0 Chrysler 73,233 67,901 +12.1 AMC 10,269 16,338 -34.6 VW u.s. 3,762 6,239 -37.3 Honda u.s. 9,112 6,981 +35.3 DOMESTIC 561,272 559,421 +4.3 Toyota 47,065 51,026 -4.1 Nissan 37,820 37,424 +5.1 Honda 26,836 25,451 +9.6 Mazda 13,462 12,739 +9.7 Subaru 12,762 11,855 +11.8 Volvo 4,055 5,097 -17.3 VW Imports 8,783 6,794 +34.5 Others* 47,217 41,961 +17.0 IMPORTS * 198,000 192,347 +7.0 TOTAL U.S. 759,272 751,768 +5.0

*Estimate