British makers take bigger slice of falling market
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UTISH truck manufacturers e fighting back strongly in e battle for the diminishing < truck market. In the first .months of this year they ptured 88.3 per cent of sales, 2.3 per cent gain over the me period on 1974. British akers sold 136,815 vehicles mpared with 18,186 by imrters. Total vehicle sales, wever, fell by nearly 9,000 155,001.
Figures for August this year ow a 2 per cent switch in favour of British makers compared with the Continentals. In •the fight for top honours in the period up until August, British Leyland and Ford are almost level pegging with 30.2 and 30.3 per cent of the market respect1vely. Bedford is next with 18.35 per cent and Chrysler 'fourth with 6.98 per cent.
There was a dramatic falloff in the important heavy sec..or of the market—over 31/2 tons. In this category 4,733 trucks were sold this August, compared with 5,389 in 1974. In •the comparative eightmonth periods, the figures were 39,191 this year and 40,491 last.
In this heavyweight field, there were some marked changes among individual manufacturers' performances. In the first eight months of this year, British Leyland, for instance, sold only 9,717 trucks compared with 11,620 in 1974. Several other British makers also showed minor losses while Foden dropped to 657 from 1,068. While other makers made modest gains—including Bedford, Chrysler and ERFFord had the biggest improvement to 10,063 from 7,737. Every importer showed a drop in sales (Volvo was down from 1,712 to 1,535) apart from Fiat, up 110 to 253. There were no comparative figures for either MAN and Magirus who sold 197 and 76 vehicles respectively this year.