June truck, auto sales paint a grim picture

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But as the economy worsen s , sales reflect drivers' reluctance toget into something that chugs fuel.

Lately, Bill Collins Ford is selling 30 to 35 F-150s a month, KevinCollins, president of the dealership, said yesterday. As oil tradesabove $140 per barrel and gasoline prices hold above $4 per gallon,monthly Super Duty sales amount to 12 or 15 at most, Collins said.

Most buyers "are not doing anything, period. Consumer confidence ispretty poor right now," he said. "June is going to be a prettybleak month for the auto industry."

As automakers prepare to release June sales today, expertspredicted that overall industry sales will drop by 16.7 percent,with Detroit-based domestic automakers performing much worse thanthat.

"There is still uncertainty in the marketplace, and we have noreason to believe gas prices will decrease in the short term," saidJesse Toprak, e xecutive d irector of Industry Analysis forEdmunds.com.

On the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, shares of General MotorsCorp. briefly dropped to $10.57  the lowest they've been sinceSept. 22, 1954  but later rebounded to close at $11.50, down 5cents.

During the session, Ford Motor Co.'s shares fell to $4.46, belowthe previous 52-week low of $4.90, before recovering to close at$4.81. Still, that was down 17 cents, or 3.4 percent, from Friday'sclose of $4.98. The shares have traded as high as $9.70 in the pastyear.

Edmunds forecast the gloomiest outlook for the Detroit Three,predicting that Chrysler LLC's sales will drop 31 percent from lastJune, with both Ford's and General Motors' off 25 percent.

Analysts from Goldman Sachs forecast a 29 percent drop forChrysler, a 19 percent falloff for Ford and a 23 percent decline atGM.

JPMorgan was the most optimistic, predicting the industry overallwill drop by 13 percent from a year ago, with Chrysler, Ford and GMoff 25 percent, 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

In all, marketing and consulting firm J.D. Power & Associatesforecast that June sales will produce the worst showing in the automarket since 1992. Automakers began the year projecting annualizedsales of 14.5 million to 15 million vehicles.

The outlook is as bad as it has ever been, the Conference Boardsaid yesterday.

"The big news of the week was that consumer expectations hit rockbottom," the business consulting firm warned on its W eb site.

"With consumer attitudes so low about how much worse the economymay get, consumers are spending more time looking at alternatives (such as mass transit), rather than buying a new vehicle thissummer," the Conference Board said .

Reporter Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669.
The Associated press contributed to this story.