U.S. car sales in September were the worst since 1993

[phantom power]

I remember 1993. It was the year after I took my first full-time professional job. Also the year that my employer laid off 300 out of 800 people. A couple years before the dot-com boom started to ramp up, and people wrote books with titles like "Dow 36000" and programmers were temporarily the masters of the universe. Very temporarily.

Americans felt too broke to buy new cars and trucks last month, making September the first month with total sales below a million since February 1993.

A drumbeat of bad economic news drove a sales decline for every major automaker as total light-vehicle sales tumbled to 964,873, down 26.6% compared with September 2007, sales tracker Autodata reported Wednesday.

"I'm shocked by what's happened," says Clinton, Iowa, auto dealer John McEleney. Gas prices "have been trumped by the credit crisis" in spooking would-be buyers, he says. His Iowa dealerships sell Toyota, Hyundai, General Motors and Chrysler brands.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-10-01-auto-sales_N.htm

[leveymg]

1. But, 1993 was such a good year for these models:

[tama]

2. So how long until

"US car sales worst since 1933"?