Auto Makers to Report Worst Year Since ’83 : Cars: It is believed that the industry sold about 12.3 million new vehicles in the United States last year, down from 13.8 million the year before.

Auto makers prepared to report today that 1991 was the worst year for new car and light truck sales in the United States since 1983. And there’s a sense of deja vu in the cyclical industry.

As the battered auto industry left the Japanese year of the sheep and entered the year of the monkey, the U.S. economy was in the ditch, consumer confidence was dragging and governmental trade sabers were rattling.

In all, it was expected that auto makers today would report sales of about 12.3 million new vehicles in the United States last year, down from 13.8 million the year before. The Honda Accord was virtually certain to be the best-selling car in 1991, as it was the two previous years.

Back in 1983, 11.7 million new vehicles were sold, said the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Assn.; that same year, Ward’s Automotive Yearbook carried a headline that seems timely nine years later:

“Protectionist Fever Sweeps Washington Amid Efforts to Spark Economic Recovery.”

Legislation is pending in Congress that would establish trade barriers against Japanese automotive imports if a timetable for reducing the $41-billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan is not met.

Analysts contacted last week forecast a modest upturn in market share held by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. during 1992. Overall sales should reach 13.3 million to 13.7 million, analysts and auto executives have said.

“I think we’ll take some share from some of the European players,” said auto analyst Joseph Phillippi of Shearson Lehman Bros. in New York City. “I think we’ll take some share from the smaller Japanese players.

“But it’s not going to be easy. None of these guys are going to roll over and play dead for you. And we’re only talking about tenths (of a percentage point).”

Through the first 11 months of 1991, the Big Three held 70.4% of the U.S. market--down 1.4 percentage points from a year before--and Japanese auto makers had 26.8%, up 1.9 points from 1990.

The Big Three “are going to hold share in 1992 and the reason is primarily political,” said analyst John Casesa of Wertheim Schroder & Co. of New York.

Analysts said part of a reason for a halt in the slide of Big Three market share stems from increasing confidence that GM, Ford and Chrysler vehicle quality has improved dramatically.

But they said Detroit auto makers had better be ready to prove it; otherwise, customers who abandon their Japanese vehicles and try a Big Three product will head right back to an import in a few years.

“There are a lot of the yuppie types who are saying, ‘I’ll give these guys a chance, but don’t screw me this time,’ ” Phillippi said.