New Car Sales Up 26.6 Percent
Bullish Jaguar And Land Rover lead March resurgence
Jaguar sales up...
"The UK motor industry has enjoyed a better than anticipated first quarter of 2010," says Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive. "A strong March performance was underpinned by the scrappage incentive and improving demand in the fleet sector. The coming months will remain challenging and headline registration numbers are expected to dip, but underlying demand will continues to improve slowly."
397,383 cars were registered last month, with scrappage accounting for 12.2 percent of the total, they say.
...as are Land Rover's.
Land Rover is claiming the best-ever sales month in its 62 year history, with over 11,300 vehicles finding new owners in March.
"Land Rover UK has had an incredible start to 2010 - March has seen an all-time record in our home market which is extremely encouraging," says LR md Phil Popham.
"The sales increase is mainly owed to the phenomenal response received from customers and media to the award winning 2010 model year Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Discovery 4 and Freelander 2. It is the most efficient and technologically advanced line-up of vehicles Land Rover has ever had, ensuring a continued demand for our brand"
Meanwhile Jaguar has reported that sales of the XF doubled in March. Overall Jaguar performance in the UK is up 1.1 per cent, with total sales of 3056 compared with 3024 last March; all the more impressive considering the X-Type was discontinued at the end of 2009 and sales of the all-new new XJ are due to commence from May, the company says.
However, I doubt too many people with 10 year old cars worth less than £2k will have rushed out and blown between £30k & 90k on a jag / rangie - their increase in sales will almost exclusively be down to their excellent 10 model year line up and the sprinkling of snow earlier in the year.
This was the fortunate timing of the new 2010 cars with better perfoming engines, more economical, better handling, more stylish etc etc combined with some changable weater for which these cars are perfectly designed. Throw in a slug of Labour 'nice car envy tax' starting in April to pull purchase forward into March and the new plate and you've got a heady mix for a decent sales result for something which is entirely designed and built in the UK. Especially after this turd of a Gov't damned near sent them to the wall for refusing loan guarantees...I hope they hang their heads (fat chance). How are Vauxhall doing after the Gov't chose to bail them???
Funny enough I was the only FWD car (99 Octy) that made it up Tittsy Hill in the Snow surrounded by Landys and Pajeros while clearing an accident, Cherokee/ Felicia
I have the feeling the Motor trade will be on its arse again fairly soon!?
Ford seem to be particularly bad offenders .... slipping in huge price rises when they thought no-one would be looking. All very cynical.
I'd be prepared to wager that in some cases individual buyers could have got a better deal without the scrappage scheme. Not to mention the fact that some real classics (and some ordinary but essentailly very sound cars) were sent to meet their maker entirely unnecessarily.
Law of unintended consequences strikes again I guess.
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff