Passenger Car Back Amid Bleak Auto Sales

Auto sales collapsed in the fourth quarter and aren't expected to improve in the first quarter, the automakers say. But there is hope down the road, like by the second quarter, that sales will improve.

And not surprisingly, with the high-gas price scare this past summer, passenger-car sales are making a comeback.

"We expect the first several months of 2009 will feel very much like the last two months of 2008," said Emily Kolinski Morris, economist for Ford(F Quote), during the company's January sales call. "The first quarter is going to be bad no matter how you look at it." ...