Tax Puts Dealers in the Driver’s Seat : Autos: Big-ticket customers rush to beat a 1.25% sales tax hike. O.C.’s levy is now 7.75 cents on the dollar.

Sunday was a great day to be a car salesman.

Showrooms throughout the Southland were abuzz with customers hoping to save some cash on the day before a statewide 1.25% sales tax increase goes into effect.

In many areas, including Orange County, the levy jumps to 7.75 cents on the dollar today, but consumers in Los Angeles County will pay even more--8.25 cents--because a higher local sales tax is already in place.

For the auto industry, which has taken a heavy recession beating, it was like the first big rain after a long drought. Many car dealers said sales were up 35% to 45% from a typical weekend.

“It’s been the best weekend since before the (Gulf) war,” said Doug Swaim, general sales manager for Valencia Dodge Isuzu. “Those that have been in the business long enough say this is the way the car business used to be. This is a lot of fun.”

Swaim said his sales team of 12 people sold 21 cars, compared to the usual weekend’s 14 or 15.

“It’s been a great day for us. We think the sales tax situation probably had a lot to do with it,” said Allen Connels of South County Volkswagen/Isuzu on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach.

A spokeswoman for Sunset Ford on Garden Grove Boulevard in Westminster reported that business Sunday was more brisk than usual. Its newspaper ads had told customers, “Last Chance to Beat the Sales Tax Hike.”

Other items were also moving fast Sunday, as thrift-minded customers found it best not to procrastinate on furniture, appliances or other big-ticket purchases.

“We’ve had an extremely good day today,” said Gwin Landry, assistant manager of a Barker Bros. furniture store in Torrance.

Landry’s store attracted 120 customers Sunday, twice the usual number, and sales doubled, he said. The chain’s other 10 stores in the Southland were so busy, he said, that their fax machines were overloaded with financing information.

But it was car dealers who seemed to reap the most benefits. Dealers said many on-the-fence buyers decided to open their checkbooks to save $100 to $1,000 on a new car. Some motorists even wanted to prepay large repair bills, dealers said.

“We probably pushed at least six or seven people here over the edge to go ahead and do it now instead of waiting,” said Andrew Ruffner, finance manager at Vasek Polak in Hermosa Beach, which sells BMWs, Porsches, Audis, Volkswagens and Saabs. “I would say we’re up about 100% in sales in the last two days compared to last month.”

Not surprisingly, much of the last-minute buying bonanza occurred at luxury dealerships. A customer paying $23,000 for a 1991 BMW 325 on Sunday spent $287 less than he would today. And loan payments would also be less.

Not all buyers were peeling rubber. “A person who gets into a $30,000 to $40,000 automobile, they could care less about a $120 difference in the sales tax,” said the manager of a Porsche dealership in Norwalk.

“Our business was just miserable today,” said John Stone at Performance Mitsubishi in Huntington Beach. The dealership’s ads, however, did not mention the new sales tax.

Steve Becker, a salesman at La Torre Volkswagen in Reseda, said many customers expressed satisfaction at the thought of depriving the state of taxes. “Whether it’s $100 they save or $200, the attitude is, ‘We’re getting to them for once. They aren’t getting to us,’ ” he said.

But dealers’ enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by the fear that Sunday’s splurge will be wiped out today.

Times staff writers Mayerene Barker, Jerry Hicks, Phil Sneiderman and Steve Padilla contributed to this story.