Dealer Incentives Give Auto Sales a Boost

DETROIT —  Early February sales of North American-made cars and light trucks rose 7.9% as generous incentives stirred car sales, auto makers said Wednesday.

But the incentives weren’t enough to stop a loss of market share by the nation’s Big Three auto makers to U.S. plants owned by five Japanese makers.

Combined car and truck sales for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. were up 6% in early February, trailing the overall market growth.

The nation’s eight major makers reported that car sales, which trailed last year’s pace in January, showed a 10.1% increase in the Feb. 1-10 period. Domestic truck sales were up 4%.

Car buyers responded to aggressive incentives offered by the auto makers, said Jeannette Garretty, an analyst at Bank of America in San Francisco.

GM, Ford and Chrysler said they sold 7.2% more cars than in early February, 1989. Ford led the surge with a 14.3% jump.

Chrysler reported an 8.4% drop in car sales and a 16.5% drop in truck sales for the period. The company stopped giving rebates on its popular minivan models, which are classified as trucks, on Jan. 31.

Overall, the eight domestic auto makers reported selling cars and trucks at an average daily rate of 19,316 during early February, compared to a rate of 17,539 cars a day in the same period last year.

The Big Three’s share of the domestic market slipped to 87.6% for Feb. 1-10 from 91.5% in the same period last year. The remainder was divided among the American plants owned by Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan.

VEHICLE SALES

Feb. 1-10, 1990 % change GM* 120,285 +7.8 Ford* 93,023 +12.9 Chrysler* 36,147 -12.7 Honda U.S. 8,140 -3.6 Mitsubishi U.S. 621 +73.5 NissanU.S.* 1,629 +9.4 Toyota U.S. 6,991 +269.9 Mazda U.S. 952 +45.1 TOTAL 267,788 +7.9

*Includes light truck sales.

There were 9 selling days in the selling period this year and last year.