This week, BCA (one of the UK’s largest vehicle auctioneers) reported significantly increased sales in January and February.

Inevitably, comments were made about the green shoots of recovery – in this case by BCA’s head of LCV sales, Duncan Ward (as reported in Fleet News):

Are these the first green shoots of recovery? After all, used commercial vehicles are hardly a glamour buy, they are a business tool and if sales are strong it suggests there are plenty of businesses out there looking to the future.

I don’t mean to sound cynical or negative, but isn’t a more likely explanation for rising auction sales that businesses using vans are switching their purchases from new vans to secondhand vans – hence the pickup in auction sales, which are of secondhand vehicles.

Update: If you don’t believe me, then compare BCA’s used van auction results with these figures, published in Fleet News on Friday:

• New LCV (van) registrations in January 2009: -35.6%
• New LCV sales in January 2009: -36.6%

The same trend has been reported in the car market, both here and in the USA. Yet there are around 500,000 new cars stockpiled and unsold across Europe. If a recovery really was beginning, some of these would be shifting too, don’t you think?

In fact, that gives me an idea. Why not put all the unsold new cars and vans into auction and see what buyers would pay for them? It might temporarily weaken the secondhand market but it would provide a cracking incentive for buyers and would enable manufacturers to shift a load of stock, very quickly.