Mid-May Car Sales Show Solid Increase : Automobiles: North American-made vehicles enjoy a spurt of 9.4% in 10-day reporting period.

Sales of North American-made cars and trucks rose a surprising 9.4% in mid-May, a hint of a late-blooming spring buying season, figures indicated Tuesday.

The brightest news in the report was that car sales, up 4.2%, finally showed a solid increase. Light truck sales, up 11.3%, have been strong since January.

“The mood is here. People are wanting to buy,” said Jon Morgan, general manager of Steve Bailey Honda in Bethany, Okla. “They’ve got that confidence now that they didn’t have a couple of months ago.”

Nine of the 10 major U.S. auto makers reported combined car and truck sales for the May 11-20 period averaged 31,402 a day, compared to 29,427 during the same period last year.

“This may be the first robin of spring for this industry,” said Harvey Heinbach, an auto industry analyst for Merrill Lynch Global Securities Research in New York.

Several analysts had lowered their annual projections for the industry based on previous 10-day car sales reports.

Among U.S. makers, Ford Motor Co.’s car sales rose 11% without heavy influence from low-profit fleet sales to rental companies. That meant strong retail sales and healthy profits for dealers. Truck sales were up 16%, continuing a trend.

General Motors Corp. said its car sales rose 1.9% in the period, but it did not provide a breakout on fleet sale influence. Truck sales rose 6.5%.

Chrysler Corp., which reports sales only monthly, had an estimated 26.6% increase in combined car and truck sales. The most fleet-dependent of the Big Three, Chrysler has been running a retail promotion on its popular minivans and has repriced its original Jeep Cherokee sport utility vehicle.

“At least in this one 10-day period, this could be a sign we’re starting to see the retail buyer come out of the woodwork,” said John Kirnan, an analyst with Salomon Bros. in New York. “Against some of the other data we’re seeing, this is more reinforcement that the recovery this time around is for real.”

For instance, consumer confidence in the economy improved for the third straight month in May, according to the Conference Board, a business research group.

Toyota car sales rose 41.7% in mid-May after an early May slip that company officials blamed on rioting in Los Angeles and some other western cities where imports have a large share of the market.

Nissan, where combined vehicle sales are down 7.3% for the year, turned in another weak period, with car sales off 10% and truck sales down 14.8%.

Mazda, whose year-to-date car sales are off 27.8%, had a 33.4% gain in the period as its redesigned 626 sedan and MX-6 sports coupe began reaching showrooms.

Honda sales, despite the optimism at one Oklahoma dealership, slipped 20.1% in the period, one of the company’s few down periods this year.

Cars sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.7 million units, up from 6.2 million in the year-ago period.

The annual rate was the highest since late December, when it reached 7.1 million units. At the close of the year, car manufacturers encouraged dealers to take delivery of cars in order to bolster sales and outdo competitors.

In the last few months, domestic car sales have been bumping along at a 6-million-unit rate, and auto makers said the weak pace was because of the absence of commercial fleet business.

“All in all, this is a pretty good indication that the recovery is starting to get underway,” said David Garrity, an analyst with McDonald & Co.