Sales of new cars slumped by 17% in March compared with the year earlier period, and by 7.1% in the first quarter, according to figures from data provider RDA.

‘Car sales fell to 29,539 in March and to 107,000 over the first quarter,’ Clem Dickmann of auto marketing specialists Aumacon told BNR radio. ‘You have to go back to 1969 to find worse numbers.’

Some of the drop can be accounted for a rush to buy last December to beat a tax increase on electric cars which came into effect on January 1.

It is the third year in a row fewer cars have been bought.

Whether things improve this year is a moot point, with Dickmann telling BNR that consumers seem to have lost interest in new cars.