BRITISH CAR PRICES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 March 1946, Page 2

BRITISH CAR PRICES

EFFORTS TO LOWER- COSTS

British motor manufacturers are making strenuous efforts to bring the prices of cars back to a level within the reach of efery moderate purse, said Mr J .S. Strong, Australian representative of. the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, London, recently. They are striving to overcome the war’s inflation costs by the economies of mass production. The biggest obstacle preventing British car producers from doing this, said Mr Strong, is the purchase tax of 33 1-3 per cent, imposed on the wholesale price virtually of every car sold to the British public. The harmful effect of this impost may be overlooked, because the tax is not imposed on cars for export. The price at which cars can be sold abroad, however, depends on the total volume of sales. Without a large home market to give a basis for mass production economies, export prices cannot be lowered. As soon as the British Government enables more people at Home to buy cars by lifting the present tax, he added, the benefits will be passed on in lower prices to car purchasers.