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: Quote, Profile, Research) 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: Quote, Profile, Research) were down 28 percent while Toyota Motor Co (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) sales dropped 21 percent before adjusting for the number of sales days in the month.

Honda Motor Co (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research), 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.