Buying the big ones?...

There are anecdotal reports of sales of SUV's and big pickups showing some life as gas prices have dropped.

One was that customers, now that last summer's gas-price freakout has begun fading in their memories, are buying big pickup trucks again. The other was that nobody coming into the showroom seemed at all worried about Chrysler's possible bankruptcy. Now it's possible that many of the masses who stayed away from the showroom were put off by the bankruptcy threat, but as I'm at least a little bit dubious of the market research on this topic that GM keeps flogging, Phelan's comment heightened my dubiosity a touch. [More]

Even the incredibly improper Hummer is seeing renewed interest.

DePaula Chevrolet sold 14 of Hummers’ smallest HT3 models in December, a record for 2008.

The dealership is offering the HT3s for about $24,000, a $11,000 discount off the original sticker price.

“That kind of tweaked my interest,” Leggieri said.

December also logged some of the cheapest gas when prices dipped to $1.64, the lowest in five years.

Consumers have a short memory span for fuel prices, said Tony DePaula, president of his family’s Albany dealership.

“As soon as they came back to normal, truck sales came right back,” he said.

Sixteen­ of the 30 vehicles that DePaula sold the weekend after Christmas were large vehicles; six were Hummers and 10 were Chevy Silverado pickups.

Northway Toyota in Latham also saw an uptick in the sale of its full-sized SUVs and Tundra pickups. [More]

As for me, after this morning's reports, I'm not buying nothin'.