Europe car sales fall for 6th straight month: ACEA

European car sales fell for the sixth straight month in September, carmakers' association ACEA said on Friday, as demand continued to suffer from the loss of scrappage schemes and the uneven recovery dimmed confidence.

Automakers in Europe have been braced for pain as the cash-for-clunkers incentive schemes that many countries introduced to spur demand during the financial crisis expire and public spending cuts loom to bring down government deficits.

All major markets contracted, ACEA said, with an 8.2 percent dip in France and an 18.9 percent fall in Italy as this year's figures are compared to the strong sales seen last year when many scrapping schemes were still in force.

Germany, Europe's largest car market, whose scrapping scheme ran out at the beginning of September last year, saw a 17.8 percent dip.

The German car market should return to growth toward the end of 2010, when the aftershock from the end of the government scrapping scheme should have worked its way through the system, industry association VDA said at the start of October.

Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), the country's biggest carmaker, saw the pace of sliding sales in Germany stabilize in September. In the first nine months of the year, the number of cars it delivered in the country dropped 19.3 percent from a year earlier, it said in a separate statement on Friday.

Its global sales rose 7.9 percent in September, making for a 12.7 percent gain over the nine-month period, as demand in China and the United States offset a weaker European market.

ACEA said car registrations fell 9.6 percent in September across the European Union, with a total of 1,227,645 units registered. In the first three quarters of the year new car sales fell 4.3 percent in the EU, ACEA said.

Volkswagen group sales fell 5 percent year-on-year in September, PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA) group sales fell 7.3 percent. Ford (F.N) sales showed a 20.1 percent drop and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) sales fell 21.3 percent, ACEA said.

Daimler (DAIGn.DE) group sales were up 6.5 percent and Mitsubishi Motors Co (7211.T) saw a 38.4 percent increase.