Used car buyers get sporty

Demand for used luxury and sports cars was high in May as the UK started to emerge from lockdown.

This is according to INDICATA’s latest Market Watch.

National business development manager Neil Gilligan said: “Our insights clearly show that sales in the luxury and sports car sectors were most prominent across the used cars sold in May. We are sure many drivers have adopted the life’s too short approach and invested their money in the used car of their dreams.

“However, as the market settles down in June and July we expect to see consumers buying more smaller petrol family hatchbacks and SUVs. The sub-£10,000 sector is also expected to be where a majority of the used car sales will be for the rest of 2020.”

Older cars between six and 12 years were also popular in the UK during May, while demand in the sub-three-year old sector was slow due to dealers not opening for business until early June.

This post-lockdown trend has also been evident in countries such as Germany and Austria. The UK is however bucking European used car market trends when it comes to diesels. In the UK demand has been stable while consumers in the rest of Europe have started to buy petrol and hybrid cars. Diesel sales in countries like Germany are already 17% down year-on-year.

Gilligan added: “Whether this is a short-term blip or a long-term move away from diesel we will have to wait and see, but currently UK consumers feel diesels offer value for money motoring.”