SANTA MONICA — December has ranked among the top new-car sales months in each of the last two years, and Edmunds.com anticipates that trend will continue this year.

After topping all other months in 2009, December ranked as the highest sales month in 2010, with approximately 1.145 million total units sold. Edmunds.com said it believe this could be a start of a new trend, reported F&I and Showroom magazine.

“December has certainly been a month to remember for dealers over the last two years,” said Lacey Plache, Edmunds.com chief economist, who noted that December ranked in the Top 3 just once between 1991 and 2008. “And with a substantial number of new car buyers still coming back to the market after deferring their purchases this summer, dealers have plenty of reason to believe that this December will continue the trend. Recent income growth, moderated inflation and improved consumer confidence are all combining to put consumers in a better position to spend.”

If December is going to take the sales crown again this year, it must surpass March’s sales volume of approximately 1.246 million vehicles, according to Edmunds.com. April currently sits in second place for 2011, with approximately 1.157 million cars and trucks sold during the month.

Luxury makes have traditionally enjoyed strong end-of-year sales volumes triggered by higher incentive spending and sell-offs of remaining current model-year vehicles, according to the Website. But only recently have some of the mainstream automakers joined the year-end surge. Chevrolet, for example, had its second-best sales month in December in each of the last two years. Those rankings were sharp improvements over 2006 and 2007, when December ranked No. 7 and 8, respectively, for Chevrolet. Similar jumps occurred for Ford, Honda and Toyota.