Vehicle Sales of U.S. Firms Jump 22.9% : Autos: The late-November results included a 37.4% increase in truck sales and a 14.5% increase in car sales.

Domestic auto makers reported a 22.9% rise in vehicle sales in late November. Vehicle sales for the month, including imports, were up 11%.

Domestic makers’ truck sales were up 37.4% from Nov. 21-30, compared to last year, while car sales showed a 14.5% increase.

The industry, including imports, chalked up a 26.7% increase in truck sales in all of November and a 3% increase in car sales.

The jump was largely because of a sales spurt at the end of the month, said Tom Webb, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Assn.

“Auto travel over Thanksgiving was a record. Many families must have bought right before, or decided soon after that their old clunker had made its last trip to Grandma’s,” he said.

The projected annual sales rate for domestic cars for late November was 7.3 million--the third time this year that the estimate has gone over 7 million during a 10-day period. The projected rate for the entire month for domestic cars was 6.2 million. The projected rate for trucks was 4.6 million for both the month and the 10-day period.

Ford Motor Co. reported the biggest increases of the Big Three for the 10-day period, including a 38.9% leap in car sales compared to the same period last year, and a 28.3% jump in truck sales.

For the month, Ford reported that car sales were up 20.6% over November, 1991, and truck sales were up 19.5%.

Jack Demmer, owner of Jack Demmer Ford in Wayne, said his hottest seller was the Taurus, and the new Probe was also popular.

“Customers have more confidence in their future,” he said. “If they’re spending the amount of dollars it takes for a car these days, they obviously have confidence in the next two or three years.”

Analyst Jay Leopold of Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. in Baltimore, said he expected sales to keep rising through the first half of next year.

“It will be gradual, but at least the trend of rising sales will continue,” he said.

At General Motors Corp., truck sales for the 10-day period were up 37.2%, but car sales were down slightly--0.6%. For the month, GM’s truck sales were up 25.2%, and car sales were down 7.3%.

Chrysler Corp., which reports sales only monthly, said November domestic sales were up 6.4% for cars and 41.8% for trucks compared to November, 1991--a 24.7% overall rise.

The company said the rise in truck sales set a record for the month of November, largely because of strong minivan and Jeep sales.

Mitsubishi reported a 105.1% increase in November truck sales, but a 26.5% drop in car sales. Such wide variations occur because Mitsubishi has a comparatively small share of the U.S. market.

Japanese companies that make vehicles in the United States reported an overall November increase of 6.9% in sales compared to last year.