Truck sales are rallying
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• Truck sales are increasing slowly with last month one of the best this year, though most manufacturers have shown a dramatic drop compared with September last year.
The only manufacturers to show a gain are Scania. Dennis and ERF, whose aggressive marketing appears to be paying off. The apparent September slump is due to last year's Euro-2 emissions regulations, which caused a massive rush to buy Euro-1 vehicles.
Hardest hit are the big play
ers, Iveco Ford and Leyland Daf: last month each sold fewer than half the trucks they did in September 1996. Overall sales in the year to date (above 3.5 tonnes GVW) are 33,059— down 20.7 on the same period last year.
In contrast, light vehicle sales are up by around 10.9%. The biggest growth is in the sub-1.8 tonne category: Volkswagen has done particularly well, increasing sub-3.5-tonne sales from 7,922 to 11,314 vehicles during the year to September.