No end to sales slump
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• Sales of light commercial vehicles have continued to decline in the first half of the year.
Vehicle registrations to the end of May are down 31% on the corresponding period in 1990, according to SMMT figures. Sales in the under-1,800kg class are down 32% and those in the 1,801kg-3,500kg class are down 31%.
Least affected are light 4x4 vehicles, where the fall is only 12%. Ford has suffered the largest reduction in vehicle sales in the 1,801kg-3,500kg class, which includes Transit vans and P100 pickups. Vauxhall has also been hit hard with a 43% fall in Astramax sales, down almost 6,000 units compared with last year. By contrast Leyland Daf sales have fallen by only 11%, a drop of around 700 vehicles. makes high-cube versions of the 205 van. The Maxum is unique to Peugeot Talbot in the UK: neither Citroen nor Fiat offer it in their Sevel ranges. Peugeot Talbot will give the go-ahead for volume production if enough interest is shown. Peugeot expects sales to be around 50 a year and some bodybuilders have already shown interest.
Prices start at around £16,300 (ex-VAT) for a basic model with a naturally aspirated diesel engine. The turbo-diesel is expected to cost around £17,500. A full roadtest will appear in CM soon.
0 Peugeot-Talbot will launch a car-derived van next year. The van, based on the small Peugeot model due to be introduced at the Frankfurt show, will compete against the Ford Fiesta and the Vauxhall Novavan, but Peugeot does not plan to enter it in the high-cube CDV sector.