Scots new car sales revving up and driving ahead of UK

Sales of new cars from Scottish dealers are tipped to accelerate again this month after the first year-on-year rise since May.

Industry figures yesterday showed there were a total of 5,235 car registrations north of the Border last month – an increase of 9.4 per cent on August 2010, just ahead of the 7.3 per cent gain for the UK as a whole.

Douglas Robertson, chief executive of the Scottish Motor Trade Association, said: “This is our first rise in new car registrations since May of this year and, whilst the figures are small, it is a very encouraging sign in the month before the arrival of the ‘61’ plate registrations. We are anticipating yet another increase in September.”

Despite August’s bounce, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) – which complies the data – said the outlook for the industry remained “challenging”.

On a UK-wide basis, sales from January to August were down by 6.1 per cent on the previous year, but the August increase followed 13 months of decline. The “supermini” segment jumped by 17.6 per cent to account for 37.3 per cent of the August new car market, the SMMT added.