GM, Ford Take It on Chin in 4th Quarter : Autos: The two biggest of the Big 3 combined to lose more than $2 billion in the last three months of 1990.

General Motors Corp. today posted a whopping $1.6-billion loss for the fourth quarter of last year, creating the biggest quarterly loss ever for the Big Three auto makers.

GM’s loss, combined with a $519-million loss that Ford Motor Co. reported earlier in the day and a $31-million profit that Chrysler Corp. reported last week, brought the total Big Three loss in the last three months of 1990 to $2.1 billion.

The combined loss is about $400 million more than Wall Street analysts had predicted. The previous record quarterly loss was in the third quarter of 1981, when the Big Three lost $943.3 million.

The latest losses means there will be no profit-sharing for more than 450,000 Big Three hourly workers and no executive bonuses, which are tied to profit-sharing levels.

GM and Ford said plummeting car and truck sales torpedoed gains in the auto makers’ financial services operations.

GM’s fourth-quarter loss amounted to $2.89 per share of GM common stock. During the fourth quarter of 1989, GM earned $700.2 million, or $1.01 per common share.

Fourth-quarter revenues for 1990 fell 4.7% to $26.4 billion, compared to $27.7 billion during the same time last year.

“The plunge in consumer confidence due to events in the Middle East and economic turmoil resulted in a dramatic drop-off in North American vehicle demand and dealer inventories, which contributed to sharply reduced factory sales and earnings in the fourth quarter,” GM Chairman Robert Stempel said in a statement.

For the year, GM earned $102 million, excluding a $2.1-billion restructuring charge the auto maker took in the third quarter for plant closing and other expenses. Including the restructuring charge, the huge auto maker lost $2 billion last year--by far the biggest annual loss for any company in automotive history.

Ford’s $519-million fourth-quarter loss worked out to $1.11 a share and contrasted with earnings of $314 million, or 68 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 1989.

Ford Vice President and Treasurer David McCammon said the auto maker “will have a substantial loss in the first quarter” as well.