Car sales soar despite high gas prices

By Mark Glover
mglover@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012 - 11:23 am
Last Modified: Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012 - 11:32 am

High gasoline prices apparently are doing little to curtail car buying, according to Santa Monica-based TrueCar.com.

TrueCar is projecting nationwide February new-car sales to come in a 1.08 million units, up 9.6 percent from February 2011 and a nearly 20 percent increase over January.

The February forecast - including fleet sales - translates into a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 14.3 million new car sales this year. That's the highest SAAR level since May 2008.

TrueCar also projected February used car sales to come in at 2.09 million units, up 16.5 percent from February 2011.

"The signs for 2012 point to a great period of recovery for automakers as the industry looks at continued growth through the year, " said Jesse Toprak, TrueCar's vice president of industry trends and insights. "We are upgrading our 2012 forecast to 14 million units based on improving consumer demand, better credit availability and dozens of compelling new products due to arrive at the dealerships this year."

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