Special Car, auto, cars, vehicles

GM's North American sales chief, Mark LaNeve, said Pontiac will become a smaller, specialty brand but will continue to sell value-priced performance cars. Read news and analysis of GM's plan for Congress here later Tuesday: GM is looking for a $4 billion bridge loan to see it through 2008, with the request for another $8 billion in a line of credit for next year.

The industry was off 36 percent for the month. The notorious Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) was 10.6 million units per year, down from a SAAR of 16.4 million units per year based on November 2007 sales. All numbers in this story compare November 2008 sales to November 2007 sales, unless I say otherwise.

Sales of pickup trucks, especially the new Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram, are rebounding, in that their sales didn't drop as much as other models. Chrysler attributes some of that to a strong farming industry, but the cheap price of gas has a lot to do with it, of course. Clearly, though, the utter lack of consumer confidence has hit the auto biz hard. Dealers have been hit on two sides: no customers in showrooms and lack of financing for their floorplans.

Here's how November shook out ...

GM: 154,877 deliveries, off 41 percent.

• Retail was off 45 percent, to 106,737 and fleet was off 29 percent, to 48,140.
• Four-cylinder take-rate for midsize cars remains high, at 63 percent (70 percent for Chevy Malibu).
• Malibu was the single GM model that outsold November 2007, up 31.3 percent, to 9,469
• Cadillac CTS, off 48.0 percent, to 2,902. Buick Enclave, off 40.3 percent, to 2,288. Hummer H3 was off 65.8 percent, to 1,048.

Toyota: 130,307 deliveries, off 33.9 percent.

• Toyota division cars dropped 31.1 percent, trucks dropped 37.4 percent.
• Lexus car sales fell 40 percent, truck sales fell 26.9 percent.
• The only gainers were brand-new models; the Toyota Sequoia, up 51.9 percent, to 1,873 units, and the Lexus LX, up from 71 units to 424.
• Prius was off 48.3 percent (to 8,660) and Camry was off 28.8 percent (to 25,224).
• Scion xB dropped 43.8 percent, to 2,161.
• Tundra was off 55.9 percent, to 6,607.

Ford: 118,818 deliveries, off 30 percent.

• Marketing veep Jim Farley sees the automotive market will continue to scrape bottom through the first quarter of 2009.
• Lincoln continued to outsell Mercury, 8,019 to 7,744.
• Ford Taurus was off 22.0 percent (3,040), Fusion off 27.4 percent (8,914).
• Focus freefell 38 percent, to 8,194.
• Mustang fell 50.1 percent, to 3,667.
• Ford sold 2,203 Flexes. Chevy Traverse beat it with 2,936.
• F-Series was 37,911, about 2,000 of them new models. Down 18.6 percent.
• Mercury Sable was up 4.2 percent, to 1,230.
• Volvo sales was abysmal, off 46.5 percent, to 4,404. The S80 was the only gainer, up 10.5 percent to 844 cars.

Chrysler: 85,260 deliveries, down 47 percent.

• The discontinued Chrysler Aspen was up 33 percent, to 2,013. Credit hybrid sales.
• Dodge sold 2,815 Journeys and 3,364 Challengers.
• Chrysler 300 was down 70 percent, to 3,423.

Nissan North America: 80,683 deliveries, off 42.2 percent.

• Infiniti was off 28.0 percent.

American Honda: 76,233 deliveries, off 31.6 percent.

• That's coming off a record November, in 2007.
• Honda Division was down 30.6 percent, to 68,345.
• Acura was off 38.9 percent, to 7,888.
• The new Pilot was the only gainer, up 4.5 percent, to 5,601.
• Accord was off 38.1 percent, Civic off 29.6 percent.

Others: BMW Group sold 19,762 vehicles, off 26.8 percent. Mercedes-Benz USA sold 14,102, and said it was off 8.6 percent for the year to date. Hyundai sold 19,221, off 40 percent.