GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda and others down in December, F-Series still No. 1 in sales

Chrysler hasn’t posted its numbers yet, but here are some of the early results:

General Motors’ December light vehicle sales beat the analysts’ estimates, coming in about 31 percent behind December 2007, an improvement the company attributed to aggressive incentives. Ford sales dropped 32 percent, also slightly better than the average of analysts’ predictions, and the gang in Dearborn retained their bragging rights as the F-Series added another year to its record run as America’s favorite ride. 2008 makes 32 years the F-Series has been the best-selling pickup model and 27 years as the best-selling vehicle model, car or truck.

For the year, GM sales were down 22.9 percent, Ford sales came up 20.7 percent short, dragged down by a 31 percent plunge in Volvo sales.

Toyota December sales were down 36.7 percent in December, in line with analysts’ estimates, leaving it with a year-end deficit of 15.7 percent. Honda came in 34.7 percent behind it’s December mark and finished the year 8.2 percent off last year’s pace. The Camry added another notch to its run as the best-selling car in the U.S., followed by the Honda Accord.

Lexus retained its spot atop the luxury vehicle segment, coming in ahead of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. BMW brand sales were down over 40 percent in December.

Subaru will likely be the only full-line automaker to finish the year in the black (by a scant 0.3 percent), though sales of BMW’s Mini brand were up over 28 percent. Audi and Volkswagen finished the year down by a relatively minor 6.1 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. All except Mini reported sales declines in December.

Despite help from Smart, which did meet the lower end of United Auto’s full-year projections, a big drop in Mercedes sales left Daimler AG in the red by 1.5 percent. Sales of Mercedes-brand vehicles were down 11.2 percent.