Speeding up

Detroit, Jan. 3 (Reuters): Japanese automaker Toyota Motor will likely surge past Ford Motor to the No. 2 spot in the US auto market in December for the third time in 2006, analysts said.

Automakers release their December sales results on Wednesday.

Toyota, which is expected again to grow faster than all the other automakers, passed Ford in US sales for the first time in July and again in November.

Most analysts expect Ford sales to slip between 13 per cent and 17 per cent in December.

“The decrease is mostly a result of tough year end competition coupled with a weak product cadence,” Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said in a note to investors on Friday. Murphy estimates Ford will lose 1.2 percentage points of market share in 2006.

Calyon Securities analyst Joseph Amaturo said on Friday that Ford's December sales would drop in part because it stopped producing the Taurus sedan, once the top-selling car in the United States.

Also, truck sales will likely decline during the month, hitting Ford hard because its F-Series trucks are the top- selling vehicles in that segment, analysts said.

General Motors sales are expected to be down as much as 2 per cent in December, while sales for DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler unit are expected to fall about 2 per cent, according to analysts.