FORD questioned at Frankfurt the big rise in new car sales during August as suspicious and potentially damaging to the whole industry. The news follows recent praise from the industry and dealers for Ford's policy of cutting down on daily rental sales, and working to protect residuals - despite an inevitable fall in market share.

A Ford spokesman said the 10% rise in August sales was questionable, after a mere 4% rise in the year to July. Last week Ford's fleet director Mike Wear said he thought about 20,000 sales above the real market had been added to August's total.

'The real danger is that such results make the Bank of England think that spending is rising too quickly, encouraging it to hike interest rates again,' said the Ford spokesman. 'We think that the true level of consumer demand growth is much lower than the 10% recorded in August.'