French leave rest standin
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• March was not a good month to be in the commercial vehicle business unless you were French or Ford, according to the latest SMMT figures.
Registrations for the year to date are down 5.4% above 3.5 tonnes GVW: only the 7.5-tonne niche shows any real gains. The van market is fairly static overall, although 3.5-tonners are thriving at the expense of the 1.8-2.6-tonne sector.
Among the truck builders, Foden, lveco, Mercedes, Scania and Volvo all suffered significant declines, with Daf, ERF and MAN just holding their own. Star performer continues to be Renault VI, with an astonishing ro increase of 991%. Also doing well, albeit with much lower vol
umes, are Dennis and Seddon Atkinson.
In the van sector, Citroen continues its amazing performance: a 20.7% YTD rise puts it within 700 units of Vauxhall, whose sales are down 15.8%. Ford continues to strengthen with a 13.0% YTD growth.
The new Transit was always going to boost Ford's performance in the 1.8-3.5-tonne GVW sector but it also did well at the lower weights, where its line-up could be described as mature. The new lveco Daily also continues to sell well.