Given that we can pay...

Given that we can pay anywhere between about ?7,000 and ?30,000 for a standard family vehicle (or up to ?850,000 for a Bugatti Veyron), that’s a fair slice of our income, savings or borrowings.

The Northern rock crisis will affect all motorists profoundly. That nice new car you were planning to buy may now be put firmly on hold

So, the run on the Northern Rock Bank, and the images of thousands of jittery investors queuing up to withdraw their life’s savings, will be sending a shiver down the collective spines of motor manufacturers and retailers, despite the fact the products they have on offer or are about to launch are better than ever before.

And the ‘credit crunch’ that economics experts say is to follow will make future borrowing for large purchases such as new vehicles more difficult and expensive for all of us. The Northern Rock debacle has exposed the fragility of our economy and the ease with which the thin veneer of ordered society can crumble amid widespread panic. But it has also exposed Government schizophrenia about the motor car.

As Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling’s favourite mantra was ‘doing nothing is not an option’. This was his justification for first introducing the idea of pay-as-you-drive road pricing of up to ?1.50 a mile, with motorists tracked by satellite or roadside beacons. When he first floated it, Mr Darling insisted it would be instead of road tax and fuel duty, not ‘a tax on a tax’. He said the public would have to ‘trust’ the Government on this. ‘Wait until you’re Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ I used to tell him. ‘Then you’ll change your tune.’ Well, now he has.

And the Government has been back-pedalling like fury, seeking to put distance between that early pledge and its road-pricing plans. Motorists are also facing a raft of ‘green’ taxes, from the proposed 10 per cent or ?2,000 ‘showroom tax’ on gas-guzzlers, to more Draconian VED bands, not to mention the hikes in the London Congestion Charge to up to ?25 a day, to the war on car owners by the capital’s Richmond Council.

Given the Government’s hostility to the 4x4, what will its position be if a new owner of Land Rover – most likely a private equity firm – decides to shut down the Solihull factory in the West Midlands and flog it off for housing?

What we are facing is a car-crash economy. It’s been hurtling like a Bugatti Veyron towards a brick wall, with people borrowing up to the nines on cheap credit from banks and financial institutions eager to lend on easy terms. Suddenly we are told to make an emergency stop. But are the brakes sufficient to stop a smash?

What the Northern Rock crisis has done is to unleash the public’s pent-up fury from 10 years of Government spin and ‘lies’ – from lost pensions to the Iraq war. When reporters asked people in the Northern Rock queues why they were withdrawing their cash, the answer was always the same: they simply didn’t trust a word the Government was saying.

The Government was forced to effectively nationalise Northern Rock – by guaranteeing every penny of investors’ cash in its vaults – to stop the panic spreading to runs on other banks. And this all affects motorists – profoundly. That nice new car you were promising yourself just a month ago may, I suspect, now be put on hold. You might just make do with your existing car a bit longer, or trade down to something a bit cheaper. Vehicles such as Volkswagen’s Up!, which is tipped to cost only ?4,000, can’t come soon enough. Because if the economy slips into a recession, this will be about as much as most people will be able to afford.