New car sales in the UK have bucked the European trend by rising at a time when continental sales for the first nine months of the year are down by 3.7%.

The figures produced by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) show that for Western Europe total sales for January to September 2002 is 11,163,489 units, a fall of 3.7% compared to 11,594,118 units for the same period in 2001.

ACEA also produces sales figures for the month of September.

It said: 'As for the results by country the biggest increases in new registrations for September 2002 concerns Denmark (+29.6%), Sweden (+16.8%) and Finland (+9.8%). Improvements can also be observed in the bigger countries such as Germany (+3.5%), showing a gradual strengthening of its position; Italy (+3.4%) thanks to the incentive scheme, and France (+0.2%) whose performance has recovered compared to August 2002.

'After record figures in 2001, new registrations in Spain for September 2002 have slowed down by 4.1%, compared to September 2001.'