By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia autos correspondent

DETROIT, Jan 9 (Reuters) - What a difference a year makes.

This time last year, Japanese auto executives asserted confidently they would keep snatching a bigger chunk of the U.S. market as their Detroit rivals executed turnaround plans and prepared further production cuts to match dismal demand.

That seems a distant memory as industry officials descend on Detroit in the coming days for what will be a smaller, far more downbeat North American International Auto Show after U.S. vehicle sales ended 2008 at a 16-year low with even the once-unstoppable Japanese recording sharp declines.

Three of them -- Nissan Motor Co (7201.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T: Quote, Profile, Research) -- have pulled out of this year's show altogether, and others are set for a low-key presence. In a departure from past practice, few executives from Japan will attend the show, as hard economic times have made cost-cutting the name of the game.

Even Honda Motor Co (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research), the U.S. market's fifth-biggest brand, will have a booth but no press conference, foregoing an opportunity to play up the debut of its all-important new Insight -- the first of its next generation of low-cost hybrid cars.

"It was out of consideration for the Big Three," said CEO Takeo Fukui, who will skip the annual show for the first time since taking the helm at Honda in 2003.

"The Detroit show is an important one for the United States, but it's the Big Three's backyard and we thought it would be brash to go out there with a bang given the circumstances," he said last month.

The circumstances, indeed, are bleak.