L-reg sales

NEW L-registration cars could be selling at the rate of pounds 1m a minute when garages and car showrooms open for business this week, the industry hopes. About 68,000 vehicles with a value of more than pounds 600m will be offered on the first day of the new registration.

They will account for about 17 per cent of the expected 400,000 car sales in August.

'A 400,000 figure would be about 10 per cent up on the August 1992 figure,' said a spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.