Motor Industry's Grim Outlook
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THE immediate outlook in the British
motor industry is extremely depressing. During the first quarter of this year production is bound to be severely curtailed, and it is unlikely that the 1956 volume of production will be surpassed this year.
This forecast is made in the latest issue of Motor Business, published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, 22 Ryder Street, London, &W.1.
Sales of commercial vehicles, it is thought, may be better maintained than those of cars. All chances of price reduction have been lost, but it is regarded as perhaps significant that the chairmen of the vehicle manufacturing companies have given no sign 'of any decline in their confidence in the future.
Because Germany was less severely hit by the curtailment of oil supplies. production in that country was likely to be reduced to a lesser extent than in Britain. This meant that German production costs would be below British and French, and the German position in world markets would strengthen further.
A report on the French motor !ndustry states that French commercialvehicle output was not expanding in line with world demands