U.S. car sales hit 15-year low

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. car sales plunged in June, but a month-end clearance sale helped General Motors Corp (GM.N) retain its No. 1 spot and steer clear of the wipeout many had feared, sending its shares climbing.

Record fuel prices and slumping trade-in values for big trucks and SUVs hit truck sales hard, but industry-wide sales fell by a more limited margin than the most bearish Wall Street forecasts, based on initial sales reports from the car-makers.

GM posted an 18 percent decline in sales for June, a month car dealers, executives and analysts had all warned was on track to become the weakest for the industry in years.

Sales for Ford Motor Co (F.N) were down 28 percent while Toyota Motor Co (7203.T) sales dropped 21 percent before adjusting for the number of sales days in the month.

Honda Motor Co (7267.T), which boasts the most fuel-efficient vehicle line-up among the major car-makers, bucked the downturn and posted a 1 percent sales gain.

GM was the industry's main surprise. GM credited a six-day sale featuring zero-percent financing offers with driving traffic to showrooms at the end of the month, allowing it to head off a challenge for sales leadership from Toyota.

On the adjusted basis tracked by Wall Street analysts and investors, GM's sales were down just 8 percent because June had three fewer sales days than the same month a year earlier, an unusually large skew in year-to-year comparisons.

Shares in GM, which touched a 54-year-low on Monday and have been trending lower for two months, jumped on the June sales result and pulled the broader U.S. equity market higher.