Ford's strong first quarter and General Motors' early repayment of federal loans translated into improved sales in Florida, dealers say.
"We were up in 2009 over 2008, and so far this year were up over 2009," said Benny Robles, president of Bartow Ford.
The gains come even as Florida remains mired in a construction slump, which has blown a hole in big truck sales, reported Robles, who said his 62-year-old dealership is Ford's second-largest heavy truck dealer.
Ford reported a $2.1 billion first-quarter profit and said it expects a "solid profit" for 2010, a year sooner than forecast. Ford lost $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2009.
Another longtime Florida dealership, Sunrise Ford in Fort Pierce, said Ford's decision not to take any federal relief money has bolstered confidence and sales.
"Many customers comment on that. It's been well-received," said Mike Wetzel, vice president and general manager.
"We've had numerous Toyota trade-ins because of their troubles," he added.
GM, meantime, pumped up consumer confidence when it announced it had finished repaying the $8.2 billion loan plus interest it owed the U.S. and Canadian governments.
(An additional $43 billion has not been repaid because it was converted to a 61 percent equity stake in the company. That money can be recovered only through a public stock sale, which is expected no sooner than the fourth quarter.)
Dan O'Shea, Internet manager for Carl Black Buick Pontiac GMC in Orlando, said new models such as the four-cyclinder GMC Terrain SUV and new stylings on the Buick LaCrosse and Regal are helping to drive more traffic.
"We doubled Internet sales since last August," he said.
O'Shea said General Motors is deeply committed to web-based marketing and sales.
"GM is huge on the Internet. They set certain requirements for response times to customers. We started at 14 hours (average response time per inquiry), then five hours per inquiry. Now we're at 36 minutes," he said.
Despite increased sales numbers, Detroit's auto giants are struggling to hold onto market share.
Nationally, Ford increased its share of the new car and truck market from 15.1 percent in March 2009 to 17.1 percent last month by selling 52,000 more vehicles.
GM's share, however, dipped from 18.2 percent a year ago to 17.7 percent last month, even though it sold 33,000 more cars and trucks.
Reason? Continued intense competition from Asian automakers, whose U.S. market share rose from 47.7 percent to 49.5 percent during the same period.
Florida is proving to be an even tougher sell for the domestic brands, dealers say.
Ford's 2009 market share in Florida was 6.2 percent for cars and 17 percent for trucks, Wetzel said. Though those figures were an improvement over 2008, "(Ford) used to be in the teens for cars and 20s for trucks," he noted.
Slippage in market share comes as the number of dealerships shrinks.
Ted Smith of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association said Florida shed 165 new-car dealerships in recent years -- leaving about 1,000 active stores.
That attrition equates to $1 billion in lost tax revenues annually, Smith estimates.
Even when the economy rebounds, industry observers doubt that those lost dealerships will be back.
"The number of existing auto sales facilities nationwide is based on a national annual sales rate of 16 million vehicles; sales in 2009 dropped to 10.4 million vehicles, the lowest in nearly 30 years," wrote David Waite in the Los Angeles Business Journal.
"Even before the onset of the recession, the auto sales industry was overbuilt and overfacilitized. Add to this the change in how people buy cars and ratcheted-up credit standards and it is unlikely, even when the economy recovers, that we will see many of these vacated dealerships put back to use by new car dealers," Waite said.
Dealers that have survived have trimmed staffs. Sunrise, located in foreclosure-ridden St. Lucie County, employs 80 workers -- down from a peak of 105.
Dealers also are diversifying their inventory.
"We are strictly a Ford dealer ... for now," Wetzel says. But that will change in the coming months when Sunrise adds the Mahindra line of Indian-made diesel trucks and SUVs.
"This is one of largest Ford Credit branches; we also have the highest percentage of (credit) turndowns," Wetzel said, noting the Treasure Coast region's plague of mortgage defaults.
Paul Taylor of the National Automobile Dealers Association in McLean, Va., said Florida car sales will continue to sputter as long as the state's economy remains sluggish.
"If home equity stops its free fall, that will help," he said.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
