Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., facing a drop- off in loans from former lending unit GMAC LLC, will begin advertising tomorrow to reassure buyers they can still borrow from hundreds of banks.

The push by the largest U.S. automaker comes four days after GMAC said it would lend only to buyers with top credit scores. The ``Financing that Fits'' campaign also will emphasize existing rebates of as much as $6,000 on some 2008 models, GM spokesman John McDonald said.

Using advertising money to highlight access to loans underscores automakers' challenge in these ``incredibly unusual times,'' as Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner put it this week. Deutsche Bank AG analyst Rod Lache said Oct. 14 that the industry sales rate in October may be the worst since 1983.

``It speaks to the difficulty GM is having,'' Marshall Nickles, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, said in an interview. ``Given the public impression that loans might not be available, they need to send this message.''

GM, based in Detroit, will run the ad campaign until Nov. 3 on television, radio and the Internet, McDonald said. Customers will apply for loans using a Web-based system and be able to choose from many participating lenders, he said.

North American sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve recorded radio commercials for the campaign. ``I know that some of you may be worried about getting financed,'' he says in the ads. ``The truth is, a market like this creates some great opportunities,'' such as low down-payments.

Incentives to Dealers

GM rose 18 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $6.40 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have tumbled 74 percent this year, the most among the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

GM also is expanding its incentives to dealers by offering cash bonuses for sales financed by lenders other than GMAC, now 51 percent owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP.

The program began last week and includes most 2008 and 2009 models, said Richard Joseph, director of Cincinnati-based Joseph Auto Group, whose dealerships include Chevrolet and Cadillac outlets. McDonald declined to comment.

Dealerships are eligible for as much as $250 in cash for each sale of a non-GMAC financed vehicle, to be divided among sales staff, managers and other employees, according to a GM memo to dealers.

GM's list of roughly 300 lenders outside GMAC ranges from Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp and San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. to Idaho Central Credit Union in Pocatello and the credit union for St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos.

Pricing Actions

``This is an extraordinary time in the capital and credit markets,'' Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for Detroit-based GMAC in New York, said today in an e-mail message. ``As a result, we have had to take some pricing and underwriting actions to more prudently manage the business.''

``We are still offering retail financing,'' Proia said.

Spurring dealers to find other sources of credit may further pare GM's dependence on GMAC, which provided only 20 percent of the automaker's loans last month after accounting for 43 percent in the second quarter.

With the global credit crisis deepening, GMAC said Oct. 14 that it has ``limited if any access to funding'' for its auto and mortgage units. A day earlier, GMAC tightened rules to issue loans only to buyers with credit scores of at least 700, excluding about 42 percent of U.S. consumers.

Ford Motor Co. sent a letter yesterday to dealers seeking to reassure them of the stability of its financing arm, Ford Motor Credit spokeswoman Margaret Mellott said today.

``Many companies providing automotive lending have recently decided to exit this market or reduce their exposure by tightening their purchase policies,'' the letter said, according to Mellott. ``Ford Credit has not tightened its lending standards.''

GMAC Stake

GM, which sold the majority stake in GMAC to Cerberus in 2006, has lost almost $70 billion since its last annual profit in 2004.

The automaker is trying to boost its liquidity by at least $15 billion through the end of 2009 with a combination of cost cuts, asset sales and new debt. Should U.S. industrywide sales stay at an annual pace of 14 million units, the new cash would be enough until 2010, when lower labor costs kick in, GM has said.

Forecasters including J.D. Power & Associates and Global Insight Inc. are predicting U.S. sales next year as low as 13 million. That compares with an average of 16.8 million this decade through 2007.

``People are just getting wave after wave of shocks,'' Pepperdine's Nickles said. ``First was the banking-credit issue. The next wave is going to be the recession itself and the toll it will take on the economy.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan, at jgreen16@bloomberg.net; Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 16, 2008 16:16 EDT