Toyota offers zero-percent financing

DETROIT, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Toyota Motor Corp. is responding to disastrous September sales figures by rolling out a zero-percent interest financing plan, the company said.

Toyota, which has traditionally avoided such sales promotions, announced the move after its U.S. sales dropped a staggering 32.3 percent last month, The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.

The poor numbers came as U.S. sales for the automotive industry as a whole hit their lowest levels since 1993. Toyota officials told the newspaper that the housing crisis and Gulf Coast hurricanes affected sales while the Wall Street financial crisis hit consumer confidence.

"With the conditions we saw last month we thought this would be a great opportunity to bring customers back to the showroom," Toyota spokeswoman Zoe Zeigler told the Free Press.