KLUP Post 1/15/2008 Toyota

Toyota is trucking through tough market conditions. John Thurman of Heart of Texas Realty here with today's San Antonio Business Journal News Feature. Business Journal writer Scott Bailey wrote that truck sales were down at Ford and General Motors in 2007. And while Toyota saw an impressive increase in its Tundra sales versus the previous year, the automaker still came up short of what some industry observers have referred to as a conservative sales goal. Toyota officials say the company sold almost 200,000 Tundra Trucks nationwide in 2007 - up from 125,000 in the previous year. Industry analyst Ron Pinelli of Auto-Data Corp. notes that the auto industry has contracted because of the housing and credit crunch. Pinelli believes however, that considerable improvement will occur in both markets in 2008 and Toyota should benefit from that. One hitch though that may affect large vehicle sales is oil prices. Many analyists predict that the price for a barrell of oil could go as high as $200.00 per barrel, roughly doubling the price of a gallon of gasoline. If this were to happen, large vehicle sales would undoubetly sufffer. However, Toyota's history is in light trucks and cars and they have plans to build such a smaller model if gas prices get out of hand. For San Antonio area homes and real estate, call John Thurman of Heart of Texas Realty. www.HeartofTexasRealty.com