July 2007 will go down as a very historical month for domestic automakers, although not the kind of occasion that they’ll be using in advertising copy and promoting in their museums: U.S.-branded vehicles made up less than half of all new vehicle transactions in the month for the first time ever.
Ford , General Motors and Chrysler ’s domestic vehicles made up 48.1 percent of July vehicle sales, while 51.9 percent of sales were of foreign vehicles. The domestics had been relying on truck sales, which had kept them ahead of foreign brands since November 2000 when foreign companies first sold more cars than the domestics. But truck sales have been down across the board thanks to increased fuel prices.
In July of ’06, foreign brands made up 48 percent of new sales; the figure flip-flopped a year later. Foreign automakers’ previous high was in June, when 49.8 percent of automobile sales were not domestic.
Honda and Toyota , the two biggest foreign players, both took hits in July sales, but not quite as much as the domestics. Part of the drop in sales does come from domestic automakers voluntarily reducing less-profitable and image-hurting sales to rental fleets. But domestic cars still make up the bulk of rental fleets.
