Perhaps not a huge surprise this week when the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) announce a 24% drop from last April's car sales figures. However before we wring our hands in horror we must put this into some context. In 2008 the first quarter sales were over 850,000 cars which was higher than 2007, so it's fair to say that the credit crunch had perhaps not bitten quite so hard at that point. In addition the rolling 12 month registrations stand at over 1.8million cars, well shy of the 2 million plus days, but is this perhaps where the market naturally should sit, and certainly represents a lot of cars?

Privately the manufacturers are calling the market at 1.5-1.8 million cars and are tooling up for that accordingly. We can see already, contrary to some parts of the media, that the inventory for most car makers is falling and consequently lead times for new cars hover around 10 -12 weeks for even popular brands. This is good news for the industry as cash flow pressures for the dealers and manufacturers are eased. Ten thousand cars parked up at a ferry terminal looks like a lot of cars and makes for a great picture but actually would represent less than 10% of the 133,475 cars registered in April 2009.For the consumer the message is a little mixed. Where stock exists there are some amazing deals still but where it's a factory order the discounts look ok but list prices have increase significantly this year with major price rises from all the big manufactures as they reset their prices to reflect the weakened pound and to compensate for fewer sales. However it is also true to say, that there has been a recent crop of really good cars released that are hitting the right note for people looking to change, and this can be seen in the league tables.