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Thirty years before, the automakers had also staggered, although only one of the three - Chrysler - came near to the brink. The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, the economic turmoil of the decade, troubled labor relations and the flood of imports all combined to buffet an industry that had been a pillar of the economy throughout the 20th century. In the fall of 1979, Chrysler implored the government for aid, and was kept afloat by $1.5 billion in federal loans.

A decade later, Detroit was on firmer footing, thanks to a combination of factors. Their cars were, by most accounts, better than they had been before the import challenge. Perhaps more important were government rulings that exempted truck-based vehicles, like pickup trucks, sport utilities and many minivans, from fuel-economy regulations. As oil prices eased in the late 1980s, Detroit came to dominate in these sectors, in which they faced little foreign competition. As oil prices fell steadily through the 1990s, sales of large vehicles rose just as steadily - as did Detroit's profits. The three were making record profits, and building up what seemed like invulnerable reserves of cash.

But the price of oil began to rise again, beginning in 2001. The Big Three's fortunes began to sink, a trend that was compounded by the economic slowdown that began in late 2007. Despite shedding more than 100,000 jobs since 2006 and closing factories nationwide, the Detroit automakers have not been able to cut their costs fast enough to keep up with the steadily declining market for new cars and trucks.

Sales for the Big Three started falling in the spring of 2008 as gas prices soared. In the fall, as the current recession took hold, sales plunged, including a dismal 31.9 percent drop in October, to the lowest level recorded in 25 years. The drop affected all automakers, as even Toyota, which had recently surpassed G.M. as the world's largest, reported a loss. But the American carmakers, hobbled with high legacy costs, found themselves in worse shape, as they burned through their cash reserves at alarming rates.

Pickup sales, a huge contributor to Detroit's bottom line, fell sharply in 2009, far more than the drop in overall vehicle sales. At their peak in 2004, when 2.5 million trucks were sold, pickups accounted for nearly 15 percent of all new vehicles sales.

But America's love affair with pickup trucks faded fast. In 2009, pickup sales fell to about one million trucks, a mere 10 percent of the overall market. Some of the decline was attributed to the slowdown in home construction and the impact on contractors, who were among the most reliable buyers of pickups before the recession. But the biggest drop-off was in consumers who bought pickups for personal use.

The downturn put new pressure on the finances of automakers. Analysts estimated that the car companies earned more than $10,000 in profit on each pickup, compared with marginal earnings or losses on smaller cars.

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