Banner Graphic, Volume 16, Number 122, Greencastle, Putnam County, 7 January 1986 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner Graphic, January 7,1986

Imports, light trucks lead the way U.S. car. truck sales set record in 1985

c. 1986 N.Y. Times News Service DETROIT With light trucks and imported cars leading the way, motor vehicle sales in the United States apparently rose to record levels in 1985, according to the manufacturers, who said about 15.6 million vehicles were sold during the year. Complete figures were not available Monday because the Ford Motor Co. and the Toyota Motor Co., the leading importer, did not report results for the month of December. The year-end sales estimate is based on reports for the first 11 months and analysts’ estimates of December sales. The previous record of 15.4 million was set in 1978. Auto industry executives and analysts say they expect sales to be brisk in 1986, although many say the yearly total will fall short of 1985’5. The overall performance of the American economy will as always be crucial in the outlook for sales, but another important factor for 1986 will be whether the Japanese government decides to continue informal restraints on auto shipments to this country. “I think we‘re past the cyclical peak” in sales, said William R. Pochiluk, president of Autofacts Inc., a research firm specializing in the auto industry. “I expect car and truck sales to trail off about 5 percent in 1986. That’s still a pretty good year, though.” Harvey Heinbach, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, said: “We are forecasting 10.5 million cars and 4.4 million trucks in 1986 for a total of 14.9 million units. If there is any risk there, it’s that the car figure is too low because Japanese imports may be permitted to increase.” According to the partial reports and analysts’ estimates, approximately 4.5 million trucks were sold during the year, which would be a record, exceeding the 4.3 million sold in 1978. Car sales were expected to total about 11.1 million, with about 2.8 million of them imports. However, the 1985 sales records were achieved at some cost, particularly for the domestic auto companies. Unlike in the previous peak year of 1978, the car companies decided to bolster sales by repeatedly offering financing at rates well below those available from other lenders. The incentives, such as the 7.7 percent financing offered by the Big Three in late August and all of September, sent sales soaring, but when they expired sales went into a slump deep enough to offset much of the gain. “We did some work on the August-September incentives and it suggested that they added about 200,000 incremental sales for the year,” said Michael Luckey, an analyst with Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. As for costs, the incentives were expensive enough that the General Motors Corp. cited its program as the reason for the company’s third-quarter operating loss.

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John and Peggy Lefier and their son, Bob, of Pontiac, Mich., inspect a 1986 pickup truck with the help of Kathleen Daas (left) a saleswoman at a Ford dealership in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Costly or not, the domestic companies have again resorted to incentives to clear up inventories, with both G.M. and Ford offering 7.9 percent financing on selected models until Feb. 22, while Chrysler has an 8.6 percent program with no expiration date. Analysts said they expect incentives to be offered frequently during the year to keep production lines humming. In the final selling period of December, G.M.’s car sales gained 29.2 percent, to 120,540, on the strength of a new round of incentives. For the entire month, the company’s sales were down 2.2 percent, to 307,398. For the year, G.M’s volume was virtually flat, totaling 4,607,458, a 0.4 percent gain over the 4,587,508 cars sold in 1984. Chrysler’s car sales for Dec. 21-31 totaled 31,148, an increase of 27.1 percent over the comparable period of 1984, which also had eight selling days. For the entire month, sales were 74,020, an increase of 1.l percent

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Five attempts and counting-Columbia still on launch pad

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (API - The launch of hardluck space shuttle Columbia on its first flight in more than two years was postponed for a fifth time today because of bad weather here and at other emergency landing sites. NASA said another launch would not be attempted before Thursday because of the need to inspect engine compartment insulation which has been subjected to fueling for two straight days. Officials said a new date would be announced later in the day. A launch attempt on Monday was scrubbed after the countdown had advanced to within 31 seconds, the second time in 17 days that a last-minute technical glitch thwarted a launch effort. Two other postponements, Dec. 18 and Jan. 4, were the result of the need for more time to ready Columbia and to give the seven-member crew additional training time. The disappointed astronauts, including a Florida congressman and the first Hispanic-American astronaut, were to

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Preliminary figures indicate about 4.5 million light trucks were sold in the United States during 1985, a new record (N.Y. Times photo) over the 1984 month. Chrysler gained strongly in sales volume during the year, selling 1,139,936 cars, an increase of 15.5 percent from the 986,998 sold in 1984. The American Motors Corp. showed a 7 percent sales improvement in the end-of-December period, with 4,137 cars sold. But the company’s continuing sales troubles were apparent in the December total of 7,587, which was down 26.1 percent, and the total 1985 figure of 123,449, off 35.1 percent from the previous year. Volkswagen of America reported sales of 2,689, a gain of 64.8 percent in the final selling period of the year. VW sold 5,836 cars in all of December, an increase of 55.1 percent, and for the year, sales totaled 77,537, a gain of 5 percent over 1984. For the year, both G.M. and Chrysler reported strong light-truck sales, with Chrysler’s gain of 15.3 percent, to 606,388 units, a record for the No. 3 company. Strong sales of American Motors’ Jeep pushed the company’s truck total to 181,389, a record.

return to crew quarters to await another day. It was the third time they had waited hours in the cockpit for a launch that did not occur. The countdown for the first of a record 15 shuttle missions planned in 1986 was halted at the 9-minute mark because of clouds both in the launch area and at emergency landing sites at Dakar, Senegal, and Moron, Spain. The requirement to launch a communications satellite to achieve a proper orbit dictated the length of the launch window, which extended from 7:05 a.m. to 9:33 a.m. EST. Low clouds would prevent the shuttle commander from spotting a 3-mile runway here in case something went wrong after liftoff and he had to make an emergency landing back at the launch site here and at other landing sites in Africa and Spain. During a five-day mission, the astronauts are to release an RCA communications satellite, perform more thanna dozen experiments and make the first extensive observations from space of Halley’s comet. It is the first of three consecutive shuttle flights that will study the comet. The crew is comprised of astronaut Robert Gibson, the mission commander, Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Franklin ChangDiaz, a Costa Rican-born physicist who is a naturalized American citizen; pilot Charles Bolden, Steve Hawley, George Nelson and Robert Cenker.

Banner Graphic (USPS 142-020) Consolidation of The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Daily Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published daily except Sunday and Holidays and twice on Tuesdays by Banner Graphic, Inc. at 100 North Jackson St.. Greencastle. IN 46135. Secondclass postage paid at Greencastle. IN. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Banner Graphic, P.O. Box 509. Greencastle. IN 46135 Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier *l.lO Per Month, by motor route *4.95 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A 3 Months *17.40 *17.70 *19.00 6 Months *32.25 *32.80 *36.70 1 Y ®«' *63.00 ‘64.00 *72.70 Mail subscriptions payable in advance ... not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper.

world

Libya claims Saudi Arabian support pledge

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) The govern-ment-run media claimed today that Saudi Arabia’s generally pro-Western King Fahd promised to use all the “material and financial resources” of his oil-rich country to help Libya repel feared U.S. and Israeli attacks. In a related development, a pro-Libyan group calling itself the Arab Revolutionary Committees in Lebanon threatened in a statement published in Beirut to conduct “suicide operations in the heart of Washington” and in Israel if the United States or Israel attacks Libya. Last week Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy threatened to send suicide squads that “will operate on the streets of America” in the event of a U .S. attack. Threats and counterthreats have flown since the United States accused Libya of aiding the terrorists who launched coordinated grenade and submachine-gun attacks Dec. 27 on passengers in the Rome and Vienna airports. Among those killed in the assaults directed at the check-in counters of Israel’s El A 1 airline were five Americans and four terrorists. More than 120 people were wounded. Efforts to reach Saudi officials to verify the Libyan reports were not immediately successful, and the official radio and news agency were issuing no such reports. Saudi Arabia is one of the United States’ closest allies in the Arab world. Libyan television, monitored in London, said King Fahd telephoned Khadafy on Monday and “stressed that the Saudi position in the same as Libya’s and that Saudi Arabia stands verx strongly by the side of Libya in confronting the imperialist and Zionist threats and places all its material and moral resources on the side of the Libyan people.” The government news agency, JANA, similarly said King Fahd “put all its material and financial resources to face the American and Zionist threats.” The New York Times today quoted an administration official as saying up to 15 Palestinian and terrorist training camps have been set up in Libya. The administration probably will detail publicly in the next few days what it knows about Libyan involvement with terrorism, the newspaper said. Khadafy has denied the existence of terrorist camps in Libya. On Monday, JANA claimed Israeli jet fighters were aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea for a planned strike at Libya. The U.S. carrier Coral Sea led a sevenship task force out of Naples, Italy, on Friday, but U.S. Navy sources in Washington flatly denied that any Israeli jet fighters were aboard. They said Israel’s most modern warplanes, including U.S. made F-15s, are not equipped for carrier operations. In Tel Aviv, an Israeli military source who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “We don't know anything about it and we

Carlin replaced by Casey as Postmaster General

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Postal Service has fired Postmaster General Paul N. Carlin in the wake of accusations he was too slow to increase automation of the service and streamline its executive staff and has replaced him with Albert Casey, a retired airline executive. Carlin’s resignation, which was requested by the postal board, and Casey’s appointment were announced Monday by Postal Service spokesman Ralph Stewart after the board made the change at a closed meeting. Carlin becomes an adviser to the board that ousted him. Casey, former chairman and president of American Airlines, takes over immediately and becomes a member of the postal board. As postmaster general, he will be the 66th successor to Benjamin Franklin. Carlin, who served only a few days more than a year, was called “a superb and innovative administrator” when his appointment was announced in November 1984 by John R. McKean, the board chairman who was responsible for telling Carlin he was out. Van H. Seagraves, publisher of Business

Reagan on TV at 8 p.m. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan, holding his first nationally broadcast news conference since September, is ready to announce neweconomic sanctions against Libya for its alleged support of terrorists who attacked the Rome and Vienna airports last month, administration officials say. The officials declined to spell out the additional steps Reagan plans against the regime of Moammar Khadafy. However, one official said Monday that Reagan also was “keeping the military option open.” The news conference will be broadcast live tonight by the major radio and television networks beginning at 8 p.m. EST. Returning to the Oval Office on Monday following a weeklong California vacation, Reagan held a strategy session with his top foreign policy advisers, but his spokesman refused to disclose what was discussed. The spokesman, Larry Speakes, said “reasonable people could assume” that Libya was the topic of conversation. Speakes would not elaborate.

do not comment on reports like these from foreign sources.” The U.S. Navy sources also disputed Libyan claims that ships of the U.S. 6th Fleet are on maneuvers off the Libyan coast, saying the Coral Sea task force was on a routine training exercise in the northwestern Mediterranean and not near Libyan waters There were these developments Monday: JANA said some of Libya’s reserve forces, estimated by Western analysts to number 40,000, were ordered to report to their units as of Monday evening. The analysts put the number military personnel in Libya’s regular forces at 73,000. President Reagan met with his foreign policy advisers and sources said he approved additional economic sanctions against Libya that will be announced at a news conference tonight. Also in Washington White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the United States was “on guard” against Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy’s threat to send suicide squads that “will operate on the streets of America.” Tass, the Soviet Union’s official news agency, said in a dispatch from Washington that “it is absolutely clear that the U.S. military machine is ready to deal a strike, an or der is the only thing that is needed.”

Mail brings 1959 ticket PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) - A parking ticket issued in 1959, written by an officer who left the police force at least 20 years ago, arrived in the mail last week at the Port Arthur Police Department. No payment was enclosed, however, and police had to pay 29 cents postage due, Allen said. '. The ov ernight parking ticket was issued 3 p.m. on Oct. 27, 1959. Only about half the postmark is visible so it’s not known when it was received and postmarked by the post office.

Mailers Review, a trade publication, said m a December issue that Carlin had been criticized privately by board members for failing to master issues such as mechanization of mail sorting and for an inability to make tough decisions.