Not the best of mornings to be buying or selling a new car
But December saw a big surge in sales and 2002 broke all records
Bumper sales though didn't mean bumper profits
With fierce competition from discount dealers
Car makers have offer motorists more
Ten per cent discount across without asking nought per cent finance all sorts of consumer offers
Small was beautiful in 2002what the trade calls super-mini cars like the Renault Clio
Accounted for around a third for all sales
It seems that motorists were looking for cars that were cheap to buy and to run
Diesel models were also more popular
Helped by tax breaks
They now account for nearly a quarter of all new cars
What didn't do quite so well was the market in sports car
Perhaps in these nervous economic times
Boy and girl-racers are bit thinner on the ground
After two record breaking years
The industry is now in a more cautious mood
The reality is the cheap loans
The feel-good factor not necessarily there for the rest of this year
So I would expect to see around 2
38 million new cars this year
That's about a seven per cent fall-off from last year
Customers who were put off by the high cost of buying a car in Britain have now been won over by better deals
But with competition fiercer than ever
A motorist is well placed to drive a hard bargain
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC News
