Foreign Cars Outsell Detroit

Foreign cars outsell American vehicles for first time ever

By Peter Fearon, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 2, 2007 5:14 AM CDT

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Foreign Cars Outsell Detroit — Unsold 2007 pickup trucks sit outside a General Motors dealership near downtown Portland, Or., on Sunday, June 10, 2007. General Motors Corp. earned $891 million in the second quarter, a huge reversal from the $3.4 billion loss it posted in the same period last year and the third straight quarterly... (Associated Press)

Foreign car makers, predominantly the Japanese, sped past their sputtering domestic competitors in July, outselling Detroit for the first time in history. In their worst month in more than 2 years, the Big 3's July market share was just 48.1%, the Detroit News reports, down 185,000 cars from last July.

GM reported a 22.3% drop in sales, Ford 19.1%, and Chrysler 8.4%. Higher fuel costs, economic uncertainty and tightening credit are being blamed, but industry experts say the reasons for the decline cut much deeper. "This is more than 30 years in the making," said a Ford sales analyst. (More Ford stories.)

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