New vehicle sales in Ventura County fell 9.5 percent in 2007 from the previous year, according to an annual report released Wednesday by industry consultant John Masterson.

Truck and car sales countywide fell from 49,145 in 2006 to 44,434 in 2007.

The decline reflects not only the nation's economic woes, but also the area's own fiscal problems, said Irv Steinman, general manager at Honda of Thousand Oaks, one of the year's top-selling dealers.

"I think our area has been especially hard hit with problems at two of our biggest employers — Amgen and Countrywide — so we're probably a little worse off than the rest of the state," he said.

"It's definitely an interesting time overall to be in the auto market," said Jessica Caldwell, an industry analyst at Edmunds.com. "It's going to be a tough year for automakers. You're not going to see the blockbuster sales you've seen in the past."

January 2008 was extremely slow, she said. Even though January is typically a slow month, it was being seen as a barometer for the coming months.

Despite that, Steinman remains optimistic.

Honda of Thousand Oaks just opened a sister store, Acura of Thousand Oaks, on Feb. 12 in a neighboring location, said Steinman, who is working as general manager for both dealerships.

"If all my people work hard and have great attitudes, I think we'll have great results, despite what's in the news every day," he said.

As far as passenger cars, the top 10 were all foreign models. In a repeat of 2006, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. sold the most vehicles in Ventura County.

The order from one to five was: Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Honda Civic, BMW 3-Series and Toyota Prius.

"It's very obvious that Ventura County buyers — like Southern California buyers — prefer imports to domestic cars," said Masterson, a former new car dealer and editor of the Western Automotive Consultants report in Ventura.

The foreign brands have locked in a name that domestic automakers aren't going to be able to overcome simply by building a car that is just as good, he added.

High demand for foreign cars comes as no surprise to Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project.

"That's pretty consistent, I think, with national data," he said. "Apparently, they're able to deliver more for the buck."

To compile the report, Masterson used local data from Cross-Sell Inc., a Lexington, Ky., firm that tracks new-car sales nationwide.

The dealership that sold the most vehicles last year was Thousand Oaks Toyota, which overtook Ventura Toyota's No. 1 spot. Thousand Oaks Toyota sold 2,941 new vehicles in 2007, an average of about eight a day.

Ventura Toyota, at No. 2, sold 2,700 vehicles for the year, with Toyota of Oxnard next with 2,663 sales.

Toyota's pervasive presence at the top of the list is noteworthy to Masterson.

"It kind of shows their dominance in the Ventura County marketplace," he said, "but they're dominant in Southern California, anyway."

In all, Ventura County dealers sold 21,920 new trucks and 22,514 passenger cars last year.