Few in Showrooms, but Car Sales’ Fall Not as Bad as Feared

Sales of domestically built cars and trucks tumbled 19.6% in mid-January as war broke out in the Middle East, although sales were not as bad as some in the industry had feared, according to reports released Thursday.

In the first available statistical measure of commercial activity since the outbreak of war Jan. 16, auto sales in the Jan. 11-20 period continued at a similar annual rate as in the middle 10-day periods of November and December.

However, the results varied widely from dealer to dealer and company to company. Overall, Americans bought an estimated 190,883 North American-built vehicles in mid-January, off nearly one-fifth from the poor year-ago results.

“The industry is probably happy that this wasn’t worse, but this is certainly nothing to cheer about,” said analyst Clifford Swenson at Jacobs Automotive, a New Jersey-based consulting firm. “Demand is very, very weak.”

Car and truck sales, depressed for at least two years, have been headed mostly down since the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and the related plunge in consumer confidence.

But there were anecdotal signs that the actual outbreak of hostilities last week had brought car sales to a virtual halt. Surveys of car buyers’ intentions showed an abrupt falloff, and dealers reported empty showrooms.

“The last 10 days have been pretty slow, especially the last five,” said Mitch Brown, general sales manager at Hightower Toyota in La Crescenta. “We just haven’t seen many customers. It’s not like people come in and hesitate to buy. We just don’t see them at all.”

Continuing a recent trend, sales of trucks fell far more steeply than sales of cars. Light-truck purchases tumbled 24.5%, while car sales fell 9.4%.

But even cars are selling at among the lowest annual rates in the past two years when the figures are adjusted for seasonal differences.

“We see no resurgence in demand until the military situation is straightened out a little more,” Swenson said.

Among U.S.-based companies, General Motors reported the smallest year-to-year decline in sales of domestically built cars and light trucks, off 11.4% to 87,182 units. Ford Motor Co. sales dropped 24% to 55,968. Chrysler sales were estimated at 28,500--a 38% drop.

The percentage changes are based on number of sales per day, as there was one less selling day in the period this year than last.

Chrysler sales are estimated because the company quit reporting sales every 10 days, complaining that it costs too much money and that Japanese-based auto firms reported only partial sales that made them look good.

Toyota and Honda, the biggest Japanese firms building cars in this country, have since begun reporting sales in the manner Chrysler wanted. But Chrysler is still balking and says it will report only monthly.

As a group, the Japanese-brand vehicles built in this country registered a 2.4% increase in mid-January sales to 19,233 cars and trucks. Those figures mask a general trend of declining imports, which are fully reported only once a month.

Counting only North American-built vehicles, Honda sales were up less than 1% to 6,490 cars, Mazda reported a 68% surge to 1,564 cars and trucks sold, Mitsubishi suffered a 29% drop to 1,218 cars sold, Nissan recorded a 50% increase to 4,686 cars and trucks sold and Toyota car sales tumbled 38% to 6,750.