Auto sales in June, led by Ford Motor Co., showed what could be first signs of a recovery after a long and bleak run.

The United States’ second-largest automaker after General Motors Corp. reported a modest 11 percent decline in sales, compared with a year earlier, its smallest slide in over a year.

GM and Toyota Motor Corp. saw more substantial dips, of 34 percent and 32 percent, respectively, but both showed improvement over recent months’ dismal results.

Ford sold 148,153 cars and light trucks in June, compared with 167,090 a year earlier. GM, which still sells about one in five cars and trucks in the country, led all automakers with 176,571 sales, down from 265,937.

Toyota sold 131,654 vehicles, down from 193,234 in June 2008.

Ford said it expected that overall industry sales for the month declined 27 percent, which would be the best result since September.

“The tide seems to have shifted in recent weeks,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s head of marketing and communications. “We remain grounded, however, given challenging industry and economic conditions.”

Despite the optimism from Ford, the market continues to hover far below even what would have been called depressed levels a year ago. On an annualized basis, industry sales in June hit a level of 9.8  million units, which is down 40 percent from the industry’s sales rate for most of this decade.

Moreover, sales remained very weak in several key regions, including California.

“There are still some strong head winds out there,” said Michael DiGiovanni, GM’s top sales analyst, adding that his company was hoping the sales rate would have come up better.

A year ago the industry was on pace to sell 13.6 million vehicles, but the soaring price of fuel, which peaked in July 2008, brought a hammer down on vehicle sales.

The last 12 months have been the most brutal, in terms of sales, that the industry has faced in at least three decades. For all of 2008, sales fell 18 percent.