Why the boom?
Page 46
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Manufacturers expected a decline in commercial vehicle sales this year and they cannot explain the current boom. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, commercial vehicle sales in April this year — 26,999 — were 18.6 per cent higher than a year ago and nearly 3000 greater than in the previous peak April in 1973. Sales in the first four months of the year, at 98,461, were the highest for six years.
This lively state of trade does not, however, mean that cash is flowing freely. One maker told me that about four-fifths of his company's transactions were on hire-purchase or lease. Large operators who used to pay cash, he said, were now unable or unwilling to do so.
I should be sorry to think that showmen no longer paid for their lorries with two-gallon buckets of coins.