Luxury car dealers suffer most as car sales fall sharply in June

FEWER high-end luxury cars are rolling onto Irish roads with figures showing new licences for some up-market models have halved in just a month.

Statistics released by the Central Statistics Office for June reveal a sharp fall in new upmarket cars being licensed.

Overall, the number of new cars licensed for the month amounted to 7,369, nearly 40% less than the 12,172 registered in May. But licences issued for superior model cars fell sharply.

The number of new Audis licensed fell from 348 to 185 between May and June. New licences for BMWs dropped from 165 to 138.

The number of new Mercedes-Benz cars registered for the first time also dipped sharply, falling from 310 in May by a third to 242 in June.

New licences for Saab and Lexus also fell.

The figures show the number of high-powered Land Rovers licensed, dropped slightly from 169 to 144 in June.

While there were fewer high end luxury licences issued last month, more modest models saw the biggest increases in the numbers of licences issued.

Toyota had the highest number of new private cars licensed in June, at 1,333 followed by Ford at 1,065.

The CSO figures released yesterday show the total number of vehicle licences issued was 20,007 compared with 29,374 during the same month in 2007, a decrease of nearly a third.

However, while licensing of upmarket cars and new vehicles in general fell, there was a small increase in the number of newly-registered old or second-hand private cars compared to the same period last year.

Licensing of second-hand cars increased 6.4% to 5,497 in June.

Responding to the new figures, the Society of the Irish Motor Industry said the differences in number plates issued was because motorists were waiting until new government motor tax changes were introduced this month to buy vehicles.

The new vehicle tax changes, which rate cars on CO2 related emissions, caused buyers to hold off purchasing expensive cars, said the society’s chief executive Alan Nolan.

“July will reverse this trend,” he said.

Overall sales of cars were down by around 15% this year so far though, admitted the motoring representative.