NAMA said that the wider used vehicle market benefited from increased supply courtesy of a growing volume of pre-registered vehicles, which went straight to forecourt.

“Our preliminary analysis suggests that the used vehicle market rose by 8.1% with as many as an additional 500,000 vehicles sold during the year. In total, we estimate a total market of 7.8 million units sales last year,” noted Louise Wallis, head of NAMA.

As well as an overall increase in unit sales, NAMA is seeing a shift in the age profile of vehicles, reinforcing the Association’s previous forecasts that the UK car parc will once again start to reduce in average age.

“At auction, we have seen a surge in demand in the ‘late and low’ category. This has largely been at the cost of cars in the 6.6 – 10.5 year category. Add this to self-registered vehicles and the slow but steady moved to a younger parc is inevitable. The demand pull from consumers that is driving this trend is largely focused upon ‘user costs’ – fuel, RFL and reduced maintenance costs,” added Louise Wallis.