HARD SHOULDER:A total of 18,327 cars were registered for the hire drive market up to the end of last month.
Opel registered the most cars - 2,833 - in the hire market, during the first seven months of the year.
In terms of the number of hire cars compared to overall registrations, Fiat tops the list, with 25.9 per cent of its overall new car registrations going into the hire drive market. It is followed by Opel with 25 per cent, Chevrolet with 22.7 per cent and Nissan with 21.7 per cent.
Hire drive models often make their way back on to forecourts in autumn, and there is concern that the return of these cars may add to already burgeoning used stocks.