---

Cars and Europeans - the End of a Love Affair? Reports just-auto.com

3 October 2000

Cars and Europeans - the End of a Love Affair? Reports just-auto.com

    LONDON, Oct. 3 The incomes of West Europeans are rising
but they are spending less on cars.  This is the surprising finding of
research carried out by LMC Automotive Forecasting Services.  Their report,
published by just-auto.com, examines why European consumers appear to be
allocating less expenditure towards the purchase of new cars.  The report can
be found at http://www.just-auto.com/features_detail.asp?art=291.
    Traditionally, as income has increased, then so has the proportion of
income allocated to purchases such as cars.  However, this year Germany,
France and the UK have all faced a similar trend -- consumers are spending
less on acquiring new cars than one would expect, given the broadly favourable
economic climate.
    David Leggett, Managing Editor of just-auto.com says: "The value in this
research is that it stands back and looks at macro-economic data rather than
the usual approach, which is to focus on actual car sales.  While car sales
have been strong, this research points to the possibility that consumers are
starting to spend less on new car purchase. As new car prices come under
pressure, a critical issue for the industry will be the extent to which this
trend is demand or supply driven."

    For the full report, please click here:
    http://www.just-auto.com/features_detail.asp?art=291

    just-auto.com is the premier online portal for automotive industry
professionals worldwide.  Targeted specifically at industry and business
professionals the site provides a single point of reference for independent
automotive industry information.