Record new car model variants

A record number of new car variant introductions has been recorded this year by CAP, the premier supplier of independent benchmark data to the automotive industry.

April alone saw 653 new car variants added to CAP’s databases - the highest number ever for a single month.

And during the first four months of 2009 a record 1,487 new cars have been added.

This unprecedented level of new car variant activity is largely being driven by manufacturers’ attempts to offer ‘cleaner’ cars, according to CAP experts.

David Saville, NVD Quality Control Supervisor, said: “This is the highest volume of new variants ever added in a month. At the core of all these new variants appears to be the race to reduce CO2 as manufacturers seek to benefit from new tax rules in the company car market and attract private customers who wish to avoid punitively high VED rates.

“In particular there have been a lot of stop/start technology variants introduced by Volvo and Audi. We are also seeing many more special edition variants as manufacturers attempt to send a stronger value for money message into the currently troubled new car market.”

When vans, trucks and motorcycles are added into the equation, CAP New Vehicle Data is busier than at any time in its history, according to Saville.

He said: “To put the current level of market activity across all vehicle types in perspective we added 5,482 new variants to the end of April this year across all databases. In 2003 we added 5,096 new variants accross all databases for the entire year.”

CAP New Vehicle Data is an industry-leading source of pricing and technical information on new vehicles, used principally by retail motor dealers and contract hire operators. The team typically researches and databases more than 150,000 individual pieces of information each month, based on 2008 figures. This year is proving to be the busiest ever, however, as the reduction in VAT led to 259,882 alterations to vehicle list prices, including changes in the cost of options.