SANTA MONICA, Calif. -

Though not expected to show as dramatic an improvement as the new-vehicle market, used-car sales are projected to wrap up the month ahead more than 6 percent of June 2011, according to TrueCar.com.

The firm is predicting 4.77 million used sales for June, which would be a 6.3-percent improvement from a year ago and a 10.8-percent uptick from a month ago.

Late last week, CNW Research released its projection for June, as well, calling for 4.43 million used sales this month.

On the new-vehicle side, TrueCar is forecasting 1.24 million total new-vehicle sales  for the month (including retail and fleet), which would be the best June in five years. This would also be up 18.1 percent year-over-year but off 6.9 percent month-over-month (unadjusted).

The resulting seasonally adjusted annualized rate would be 13.6 million. The firm also stressed that the SAAR from the first half of the year would be 14.3 million, the strongest in four years.

“The remarkable recovery of Toyota and Honda continued in June,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence for TrueCar.com.

(Toyota was projected to move 186,217 new vehicles for the month, with Honda projected at 126,427 new sales.)

“Uncertainty in the financial markets brought selling rates below 14 million units for the second month in a row,” Toprak continued. “Despite the relative slow down in the last few weeks, the first half sales results this year indicate a relatively healthy car industry; perhaps the brightest spot in an otherwise struggling U.S. economy.

“We expect the second half of 2012 to average around 14.5 million units, which will take us to over 15 million new cars sold in 2013,” he added.