from an economics correspondent
December 1966 saw a decline of 40 per cent in the sale of new cars on hire purchase as compared with December 1965. There were only 7,981 contracts signed last month as against 13,444 in December 1965. Credit sales also declined by some 16 per cent as compared with the previous year. Overall, vehicles contracts were twenty per cent lower in December than in November.
This emphasises the fact that it is private motorists who are being hardest hit by the credit squeeze. Fors have just announced that the night shift on the Zephyr line is being stopped. Which indicates that all the bright talk about the ‘worst being over' by some financial journalists is rather like whistling in the dark.