September record for car sales as 160,000 are driven off forecourts

The car industry is today expected to announce record sales figures for September, around 15 per cent up on last year, as the surge in consumer confidence continues. Chris Godsmark reports.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) will reveal that between 155,000 and 160,000 cars were registered last month, an all-time record for September and well above last year's sales of 138,059.

Car makers are likely to hail the rise as another sign of the boom in consumer spending, as a combination of increased optimism and windfall payments from building society sales and conversions feeds through to people's pockets. September 1996, in contrast, was a disappointing month for car sales, which fell 1.4 per cent.

But industry sources said today's figures would also reflect the fact that more than 10,000 registrations were understood to be left uncounted from the record August bonanza, when sales rose almost 10 per cent to 525,539.

Registration documents filed with the vehicle licensing body in Swansea, the DVLA, are passed to the SMMT, which compiles the sales figures. It is understood there was a big overspill from August this year, because either the DVLA or the SMMT, or both organisations, could not cope with the unprecedented volume of data.

The SMMT has moved to a computer-based registration system which has experienced some teething troubles.

Industry analysts are likely to raise their car sales forecasts for 1997 after today's statistics. That would take sales for the first nine months of the year to more than 1.75 million and suggest a total of nearly 2.2 million cars are likely to be sold this year, up from previous industry predictions of just over 2 million. It would still leave the car market below its 1989 peak, when 2.3 million new cars left the forecourts.

Today's figures will show a strong demand for imported cars, which accounted for more than 68 per cent of sales in the year to the end of August. Imports have risen steadily over the past few years as consumers show a preference for foreign brands.