• by Karl Greenberg , April 2, 2008

They used to be the great American breadbasket: trucks and SUVs like Durango, and Explorer kept sales strong at automakers when gas was cheap. Now those vehicles are dragging sales down as consumers favor gas-squeamish crossovers and compacts.

Ford says its 17% retail decline last month was "concentrated among truck and sport utility vehicles." The same was true at Dodge, GM, Toyota and others.

"This is a very challenging external environment, reflecting a seismic shift in consumer preferences," said Jim Farley, Ford's group VP/marketing and communications, in something of an understatement. "These conditions will likely persist in the near future. At Ford, we remain focused on executing our plan, which includes being profitable at lower volume and changed mix."

If there was a winner last month, it was Honda, which drove overall combined Honda/Acura sales up 4.2% because of strong take for Accord, Civic and Fit. The company's car sales saw an 11.1% lift. Standouts were sippers: Fit, up 73.8%, Civic, up 18.6%, and Civic Hybrid up 44.3%. The Acura Division posted total vehicle sales of 13,288, down 15.8%.

Hyundai also posted positive sales, with an increase of 2% driven by the new crossover, Veracruz.

While General Motors saw Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Saturn car sales up last month and strong sales as well for its mid-crossover utility vehicles, overall sales--down 13%--were hauled south by soft truck and truck-based SUV sales. Chevrolet car sales were up 6% last month, but overall car sales for GM were down 5.9%. The Detroit automaker's truck sales were off 14.8%.

Total Ford Motor Company sales--which includes Jaguar, Land Rover (soon to be spun off to Indian industrial firm Tata), and Volvo--totaled 227,143, down 14%.

Chrysler saw sales decline 19% to 166,386 versus the month last year, due to slumping sales of vehicles like the Dodge Ram, and Dakota SUV.

Jim Press, vice chairman and president, said in a release that the contrary market is driving consumers to Jeep Patriot, the new Dodge Journey, Avenger and Sebring. "Chrysler's strategy to right-size our operations, increase fuel efficiency and reduce daily rental fleet sales will help us get through this period," he said.

Those vehicles were the only ones in the Chrysler lineup that had positive sales last month. The Journey, a new nameplate, accounted for 2,640 sales.

Ford touted its Focus car as a bright spot, saying sales of the car were up 36% last month and 35% in the first quarter. The company also said sales of the Edge SUV were up 35% last month and 52% in the quarter. Overall sales of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products were down 14% last month, with retail sales down 17% with the decline due to softer sales of SUVs and trucks.

Toyota overall sales were off 3.4% last month, with Toyota divisional sales down last month by 2.9% and Lexus sales off 6.9%. The company says its light truck sales--for its eponymous division--were down 8.8%, while Lexus light-truck sales were up a percent. Toyota says its total light truck sales were off 4% last month.

Nissan said overall sales were up 3.6% for the month, with the Nissan brand up 3.1% because of strong sales of the Altima sedan, Rogue crossover and Versa subcompact, and Infiniti sales up 7.3% because of cars like the G35 and G37.

But, like others, the company was dragged down by negative sales of Frontier, Titan, Xterra, Pathfinder and Armada SUVs--for which sales were down 28.7%, 44.9%, 40.7%, 29.6%, and 43.2%, respectively. Nissan divisional car sales were up 4.9%, while truck sales were down 32.6%