The Sky News article highlighted some interesting pointers for potential consumers.

Business Secretary, Peter Mendelson confirmed the Government’s objective by saying he wanted to see all money put in by the Government ‘cleared out by the public’.

And despite this week’s VAT issues, Citroen are reported to be pressing on with their own deals. Parkers, the car price guide, confirms that there are even better deals to be had on ‘nearly new’ cars, which have no miles on the clock. A representative confirms that typically, there are plenty of family car deals offering £3,000 … £4,000 … £5,000 off the original asking price!

Could make for a busy bank holiday weekend.

Retirees are flocking to showrooms having thought through the economics and opportunities on the UK forecourts. Trevor Finn, CEO of Pendragon has said the large proportion of interest in the scrappage scheme was coming from retired motorists. One Citroen dealer last week reported over 70% of scrappage scheme enquiries coming from the older driver. Pendragon believes that this is the emerging trend.

Trevor Finn went on to confirm -  “A high proportion of the people who have applied are people who are on fixed incomes, particularly retired people who have had cars for a long time and are paying in cash.” The ecomonics are such that the retired demographic consider the scrappage scheme’s £2,000 subsidy to offer better value when compared to the current low return achieved on savings accounts and the poor and volatile performance of equity investments. Baby boomers are saying ‘Live the dream, buy the car’.

Pendragon’s Finn went on to confirm that he believed the car scrappage scheme is starting to drive showroom enquiries.

Dealerships have already begun selling the scrappage vehicles to scrap merchants, with Cartakeback manager, Graham Price saying “The indications are that several thousand cars have been pre-sold under the scheme.” Cartakeback handles the transfer of scrappage vehicles between car dealers and scrap yards, and is estimated to deal with around 70% of the scrappage volume during the scheme.