New car sales figures in July 2002 have reached 195,637 units, according to figures published this week. This beats the July 2001 figure of 173,038 cars by 22,599 cars.

Alan Pulham, franchised dealer director of the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI), representing the majority of UK car dealers, said: 'This is excellent news, and shows that the "Jubilee celebrations" really did provide a "feelgood" factor across the country. The slight downturn we saw in June has been corrected in July, especially by the increase of 14.1 per cent to 92,951 units for the private sector.'

Pulham continued: 'We are definitely looking at a prediction of a 2.5 million figure for the year.'