In October 2008, new car sales in carpocalypse-affected Europe had dropped by 14.4 percent. A year later, the Old Country is slowly coming back to normal. In Europe as a whole, new car registrations grew by 11.2 percent over October in the previous year. This according to the latest statistic of the European Auto Manufacturers Association ACEA. Since losses turned into gains in July, this is the first time Europe comes in with double digit growth. However, not all is rosy.

While the Western Europe market grew by 15.8 percent in October, sales in the new EU Member States in the East dropped by 36.9 percent. Not quite coincidentally, nearly all countries in the West had cash-for-clunker programs, which are mostly missing in the East.

From January to October, registrations are still behind by 5 percent, with 12.2m units sold in all of Europe. Led by Germany (+ 24.1 percent), all large Western European markets registered double digit growth rates. Former basket case Spain has made a remarkable comeback with 26.4 percent growth. In the new EU Member States, the Czech Republic was the only country to post growth (+8.8 percent). Elsewhere in the East, the downturn ranged from 8.4 percent (Poland) to 81.6 percent (Latvia). The full report is available as PDF and in the Excel format for your number crunching pleasure.