'Feel-Bad' Car Makers Expect Slow Growth

Beginning of article

RUSSELL HOTTEN

Motor manufacturers warned yesterday that car sales this year would grow at a "relatively slow pace" and believe the Treasury's 3 per cent economic growth forecast for 1996 is too optimistic.

Members of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which joins several forecasters to have queried the Treasury figures, said uncertainty about job prospects and a subdued housing market meant consumer confidence would remain fragile.

The comments came after a difficult year in which car sales rose just 1.8 per cent, and are forecast to rise by only 1.3 per cent this year.

Despite SMMT figures out yesterday showing that sales at the …