Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Europe's motor industry is in a blind panic. In boardrooms across the continent, the talk is of the biggest emergency for 60 years - or at least since the 1973 oil crisis.
As executives forlornly ask the European Union for a bail-out to match or surpass the $25 billion sought by the American Big Three car manufacturers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - thousands of staff are being laid off. Sales of cars and lorries are collapsing as the recession bites, with vehicles stacking up at ports around the world.
Over Christmas and the New Year, French, German, Italian, Spanish and even new Polish and Czech car plants will remain shut for an extended holiday that could last up to a month.
In the US, the financial travails of the Big Three are being exacerbated by the economic downturn. Goldman Sachs slashed forecasts this week, predicting that sales of cars, 4x4s and pick-up trucks in the US would fall 17 per cent to 13.4 million units in 2008. Next year would be even worse, the investment bank predicted, with sales falling to 11 million - down from earlier estimates of 13 million. Sales for 2010 are predicted to be 13 million.
Americans are also driving less, according to US government figures. The number of vehicle miles travelled in the US has fallen for 11 months in a row, despite petrol prices dropping.
The estimates are bad news because annual sales of 16 million are considered financially healthy, according to US manufacturers' own targets. Anything less puts serious pressure on their business models. Patrick Archambault, the Goldman Sachs analyst who wrote the note, said it was 'difficult' to recommend investing in the Big Three until there was further clarity on a US government bail-out.
Meanwhile, factory directors are trimming production plans. At the huge Deutsche Bahn Schenker component supply centre for the Volkswagen plant in Hanover, there is all the evidence that 'white van man' is in retreat, refusing to buy new vehicles as the recession deepens.
It is not just the lines of unsold vans that are mirrored at other parks across Europe. Marc Hennecke, head of the DB supply centre, says the plant is changing its production plans every two days because it is unsure of demand.
Last month in Europe, new van sales fell 18.3 per cent, according to the latest figures from the industry lobby group ACEA, with sales in Western Europe down almost 20 per cent to 144,516. In Britain and Spain, which are the most affected by the credit crunch, sales plunged 35.5 per cent and 52 per cent respectively.
New car sales are also weak, falling 14.5 per cent in October in Europe. In Ireland and Spain they plunged 55 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.
Citigroup's John Lawson, doyen of auto analysts, said that a drop in demand of 15 per cent or worse in western Europe was 'quite feasible' next year. Sales could be two million lower than in 2008. Christian Streiff, ACEA president and Peugeot Citroen boss, says the fall could be 17 per cent.
