WILDFIRE: ’13’ plate vehicles hot
The outgoing ‘13’ licence plate has outsold the past nine registration plates during its six-month run, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) have revealed.
Up until the end of July, the ‘13’ plate has overtaken all previous plates dating back to September 2008, with 1,115,459 vehicle registrations.
Indeed, even with the August registrations still to be included, it has outsold the previous plate changes dating back over the last five years.
New ‘63’-plate vehicles are being readied and manufacturer main dealers are bracing themselves for more than 390,000 new cars on the road during September.
Around £6billion is expected to be spent on new cars next month, as motorists take advantage of affordable finance deals and buy into better fuel efficiency, predictable maintenance and lower tax bands.
Mike Baunton, Interim Chief Executive of the SMMT, said: “We have seen a strong performance from the new car market throughout 2013, with the number of cars registered increasing in July for the 17th successive month.
“Now we have evidence of consistent growth, we have raised our forecast for 2013 new car registrations to 2.216million units, an increase of over 8% on last year.
“In line with this positive trend, we expect the new ‘63’ plate to be very successful and for September registrations to provide a similar peak to that seen in March.”
March is typically the month for the highest number of registrations, with September coming a close second.
More than a third of annual registrations occur in March and September combined, with the other months typically accounting for 6.5% of the annual total.
