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GM to crank 13,000 more
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August 5, 1999: 6:53 p.m. ET
Automaker sees high sales continuing, will build 13,000 additional cars, trucks in 3Q
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DETROIT (CNNfn) - General Motors Corp. on Thursday added 13,000 cars and trucks to its North American third-quarter production schedule, a sign the world's largest automaker sees no end to the red hot car market.
In a statement, GM said it now expects to build nearly 1.36 million cars and trucks in the United States and Canada in the three months ending September, up 36 percent from the year-ago quarter when production has slowed by a pair of labor strikes.
GM's hike matches a similar increase by Ford Motor Co. last week.
Under the revised production schedule, GM (GM) now expects to build 690,000 trucks, 7,000 more than the previous forecast, and 668,000 cars, 6,000 more than originally planned.
The move comes as the auto industry continues to enjoy booming sales. Last month, both GM and Ford reported solid sales figures, leading experts to predict the industry will set a new sales record when all of the car sales figures for the year are tallied.
Last week, Ford (F) raised its forecast by 2,000 cars and 10,000 trucks from the previous estimate. The No. 2 automaker expects to produce 380,000 cars and 631,000 trucks for a total of 1.01 million vehicles, up 4 percent from a year ago.
Ford's car output is expected to fall 3 percent from last year. But truck production will rise 8 percent, which Ford spokesman George Pipas said is due to the new Excursion sport utility vehicle and full production of the Villager and Windstar minivans. A portion of the increase is also due to the rescheduling of some second quarter production into the July-September period.
GM and Ford's combined third quarter production is forecast to rise 20 percent from a year ago, on a 7 percent increase in cars and 33 percent jump in trucks.
-- from staff and wire reports
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