Move over, big trucks and SUVs: Here come the cars

NEW YORK -- "Cars are back!" You've heard it so often, particularly from wishful-thinking truck haters, that it's become a provocative, if empty, Chicken Little refrain.

The reality is that Americans continue to buy more trucks than cars, despite fuel prices setting daily records. But … cars are creeping back toward half the sales mix. Their share was 47.2% last month, up a few tenths from the past two years.

And sales of the smallest, cheapest cars, which generally use the least fuel, are booming as overall industry sales are falling, according Autodata.

A flood of cars — not trucks — being unveiled at the annual auto show starting here this week, and at shows since last fall, makes the point: Companies that don't have an array of cars for the price-weary and fuel-wary might soon be in the same sad shape as those that had too few trucks a few years ago.

Cars are "definitely recovering," says Kevin Tynan, an industry analyst at Argus Research.

The shift to cars is "not overnight, but it's noticeable," says Tom Libby, at consultant J.D. Power and Associates' Power Information Network. And he adds that the shift is uneven. "There are some car segments that are frankly not doing well — large cars such as the Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300."

But thanks to the rush of introductions, the diversity of cars is mind-boggling. It shows that automakers are betting car interest will spread over all sizes and types. The gamble is that the current flirtation with fuel-thrifty small models will blossom into a new love for cars as mainstay vehicles.

One buyer who's taken the vow is Jason Francis of Corona, Calif. "The big dinosaurs are going away," says Francis, 38, a real estate agent who traded in both his big pickup and the family SUV during the past year.

Francis says he was spending $160 a week on gas for his Dodge Ram 1500 quad-cab pickup and Ford Expedition SUV. He traded the pickup last year for a Toyota Scion xB compact car. His wife let go of the Expedition this month for Ford Taurus X, a crossover based on the Taurus sedan.