Brits set to spend £50 billion on cars in the next six months

Latest findings from the Sainsbury’s Bank Car Buying Index, indicates that there is a sharp rise in the number of people planning to buy a car. According to the research, 7.3 million people intend to buy a car between October 2005 and March 2006, a massive rise from six months ago when the previous Index, which covered the period February to July 2005, indicated just 5.4 million people were intending to buy a car. Given this increase, £58.5 billion could be spent on purchasing cars within the next six months, £17.46 billion more than the findings from the previous index.

Rachel Brereton, Loans Manager, Sainsbury’s Bank said: "Despite rising concerns on the cost of petrol and owning a car our research suggests a strong six months ahead for the car industry.

"We found that of the amount of money people spend on buying vehicles around 16% of it will be financed through personal loans. If you shop around for a competitive loan rate you could save thousands of pounds in repayments. We offer some of the most competitive personal loan rates in the marketplace starting from just 6.5% APR typical online."

The bank’s research also shows that 5.1 million people will be looking to buy a second hand car while 2.2 million are planning to buy a new one. Of these 7.3 million buyers, 2.1 million plan to spend more than £10,000 on a car while 407,000 are planning on spending more than £21,000. Furthermore around a quarter of potential buyers (27%) will look to fund their new cars with a loan.

Looking at Britain as a whole, the North East is set to see the biggest rise in the number of people buying a car with a rise of 10% on the previous six months; while the South East is expected to spend the most money (£15.1 bn), followed closely by the North West (£7.1 bn). The only area to see a deterioration in the number of people planning to buy a car will be the South West where the research predicts a 1% fall.