New car sales continue to tumble

04 December 2008
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Zoom New car sales continue to tumble
  • New car sales fall 36 per cent in November
  • Steepest monthly drop in sales since 1980
  • Dealers continue to cut prices and offer deals

Falling car sales in November have seen dealers offering bigger and more inventive deals on some of the UK's most popular cars.

Official figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed that only 100,333 cars were sold during November. This is down 36.8 per cent, or 58,000 cars, on the same period last year and the steepest drop since June 1980. Unlike previous months, every manufacturer saw a drop in sales.

December has seen a cut in VAT of 2.5 per cent, which will see a fall in list prices - around £400 off the cost of a Ford Focus. But in nearly all cases this saving exists on paper only - discounts are already much higher than the 2.5 per cent on offer.

Parker's spotted the 'deal of the year' in late November when it spotted a Mazda dealer offering a 'buy one get one free' with a Mazda CX-7 and a Mazda. We've also seen it offered on a Dodge Avenger, although this deal has now finished. Anyone walking into a main dealer showroom could be offered 0% finance, free insurance and a range of other offers. Car supermarket Motorpoint is still selling Vauxhall Vectras for less than a Corsa along with a number of other price cuts.

How long will these offers last?

Currently there's a glut of new and nearly-new cars on the market and the industry is suffering from over-supply. Many factories are being shut-down to ensure that no further cars enter the supply chain. Once restarted, it can be expected that these factories will produce fewer cars than before and there won't be an over-supply problem. For that reason we expect these offers to last for the next three to four months only. 

Ford took a large share of the new cars that were sold in November, with the new Fiesta being the top selling car as well as the Focus coming in second and the Mondeo being the fourth most popular.

 

 

The worst hit manufacturers in November

1 Mitsubishi -69.8%
2 Alfa Romeo -67.7%
3 Land Rover -64.4%
4 Renault -63.9%
5 MINI -58%

The best selling cars in November

 
1 Ford Fiesta 6154
2 Ford Focus 4893
3 Vauxhall Corsa 4442
4 Ford Mondeo 5027
5 Volkswagen Golf 3052