NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrsyler LLC said about 988 of their auto dealerships closed or were consolidated last year.

The automakers, meeting with dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans this weekend, said the lowest sales rate of light trucks and cars in the US last year since 1992 meant some dealers couldn't make it. "Everybody is struggling right now in the US economy," Ford's chief executive officer Alan Mulally told reporters at the convention last night.

Ford saw around 300 dealers shutter their doors last year, leaving the automaker with about 3,700 dealers, Ken Czubay, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker's vice president of sales and marketing told reporters yesterday. Detroit-based GM had about 401 close or consolidate to have about 6,375 dealers today, spokeswoman Elaine Redd said in an interview yesterday.

Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler had 287 US dealers close last year and had a total of about 3,300 dealers at year-end, spokesman Richard Deneau said today.

National Automobile Dealers Association Chairwoman Annette Sykora said around 900 dealerships went out of business last year at a speech yesterday at the conference, giving a lower estimate than the US-based automakers combined.

About 2,500 US auto dealers may close in 2009, or more than ten percent of the nation's car and light-truck retailers, consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP wrote in a report January 21.