Edmunds.com predicts that the major carmakers including General Motors, Chrysler LLC, and Ford Motor Co. are poised to report auto sales for the month of October that will be the lowest since 1992.

According to a statement issued by the forecasting firm today, industry volume is expected to drop a massive 29 percent to 872,000. If they are correct, the drop will be the second concurrent monthly drop of more than 25 percent.

The effect of such a dramatic plunge will be to position the automotive industry as a whole for its largest slide in annual sales in almost thirty years.

Michelle Krebs, a senior editor at Edmunds quoted by Automotive News said, "All of the frenzied speculation about the future of Detroit's automakers, ranging from mergers to bankruptcies, surely adds to the consumer's retreat from buying a car."

The largest decline is expected from GM's domestic brands, 41 percent, with Ford and Chrysler each expected to be down 34 percent. The hardest hit Japanese automaker should be Nissan with a 29 percent dip, followed by Honda with 17 percent and Toyota with 16 percent.

With only two months left in the year, the industry wide total my hit 13.6 million unless some relief is offered. That figure represents a 15.8 percent fall off from the 2007 number of 16.2 million and would be the largest annual loss in demand since the 19 percent recorded from 1979 to 1980.