By any standards, 1992 was an eventful year here in the UK. The Queen celebrated her Ruby Jubilee, John Major’s Conservatives won an outright majority in a general election (despite opinion polls suggesting a narrow Labour win), and Manchester suffered a devastating bomb attack by the IRA. And of course, there was no shortage of activity on the motoring front, with a number of important new-model launches taking place during this year.
Among the major announcements was Toyota’s unveiling of its new Carina E, which would go into production at the company’s newly established UK plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire, by the end of the year. And just as important was the debut of Nissan’s K11-generation Micra, which would become the second Nissan model to be built at its Sunderland factory. Each newcomer would go on to be a major success, with a high proportion of export sales throughout Europe.
Of more importance to the general new-car buyer of 1992, however, was the government’s announcement that Special Car Tax (first introduced in 1973, adding 10 per cent to the ex-factory price of every model sold) was to disappear. It had already been reduced to five per cent in the Budget of March 1992, but would be dropped altogether by the end of the year, giving
