Ford Motor Company, the second biggest American carmaker, named division chief Steven Lyons as head of North American sales and marketing to replace Earl Hesterberg, who quit after six months and a 4.4% drop in sales in this country.

Mr.Hesterberg, 51, will become chief executive of Group 1 Automotive of Houston, a publicly traded auto retailer, Group 1 said in a statement yesterday. Mr. Lyons, 56, had been head of Ford Motor’s Ford division, which accounts for more than 80% of the company’s American sales, the automaker said in a separate statement.

Dealers were concerned about Mr. Hesterberg’s lack of recent experience in America, said Jerry Reynolds, owner of Prestige Ford, a dealership in Garland, Texas. “There’s been so much happening he wasn’t here to see,” said Mr. Reynolds. “There could be a lot of suffering while he was in his learning curve.”

Mr. Hesterberg took his most recent job at Ford as the automaker began selling the new 500 sedan and Freestyle wagon, vehicles that the chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr., 47, was counting on to lead the company to a $7 billion pretax profit in 2006.

Four days ago, Ford backed off that goal as well as a January 25 forecast of a $1.5 billion pretax automotive profit this year.

Mr. Hesterberg’s departure isn’t related to Ford’s sales decline, said a Ford spokeswoman, Marcey Evans, in an interview.

Sales of the Five Hundred and Freestyle have started slowly. At the same time, sales of Ford’s flagship sport-utility vehicle, the Explorer, have fallen 25% this year from a year earlier. The company’s F-Series pickup, the nation’s best-selling vehicle, has dropped 9.4%.

Ford and General Motors Corporation, the world’s biggest automaker, have been losing American market share while rivals such as Toyota Motor Corporation and Nissan Motor Company have gained ground. GM’s and Ford’s American sales have each fallen 5.2% this year and Ford’s market share in the first quarter dropped almost a point, to 19.5%.

After the decline in first-quarter sales, Ford cut its 2005 forecast to $1.25 to $1.50 a share from a projection of $1.75 to $1.95.

GM last month projected its biggest quarterly loss since 1993 and cut its full-year forecast by more than half. The company also cited higher gasoline and steel prices and rising health-care costs.

JPMorgan yesterday reduced its earnings-per-share estimate for Ford by 18% to $1.35 for this year and by 26% to $1.45 for 2006.

Mr. Lyons, who started at Ford in 1972 as a truck designer, is “a proven, disciplined guy, and very dealer-centric,” said Jim Sanfilippo, executive vice president of Automotive Marketing Consultants in Warren, Mich. “He’s very much a product of the Ford corporate culture.”

His formal title is group vice president of North American marketing, sales, and service.

Mr. Lyons is succeeded at the Ford division by Darryl Hazel, 56, chief of the Lincoln-Mercury division, Ford said. Al Giombetti, 48, was named head of Lincoln-Mercury.

Combined sales of Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury declined 5.1% during the first quarter, according to Autodata Corporation. Of the brands, Mercury had a 17% increase, helped by the new Montego sedan, which went on sale in October. Ford brand sales fell 6.6% and Lincoln declined 8.3%.

Mr. Hesterberg was named on September 10 to succeed the retiring Jim O’Connor, a 40-year veteran of Ford and Lincoln-Mercury sales and service units. Mr. Hesterberg had run sales and marketing in Europe after rejoining Ford in 1999.

Mr. Hesterberg began his Ford career in 1975 and left in 1982. He is a former head of Nissan Motor Company sales units in America and Europe and was chief executive of Gulf States Toyota, an independent Toyota distributor in Houston.

Ford’s 5.2% American sales decline in the quarter compares with an industry-wide decline of 0.4%. Ford’s share of the American market declined 19.5% during the quarter, from 20.4% a year earlier.

Ford shares fell 59 cents, or 5.4%, to $10.44 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have dropped 29% this year.

At Group 1, Mr. Hesterberg replaces B.B. Hollingsworth Jr., a company cofounder, who is retiring as an executive while continuing as a director. He has been chairman of Group 1 since March 1997 and president and chief executive since August 1996.