Detroit’s automakers went out with a whimper in 2007, as a lackluster December failed to pull the industry out of the lowest U.S. auto sales slump in nearly a decade.

Ford Motor Co. was knocked from its perch as the No. 2 U.S. auto seller, a position it held since 1931, while General Motors appeared likely to lose its title of the largest automaker in the world. Both were dethroned by the juggernaut that is Toyota.