The 162-registration plate sales fever is in full flight right now and buyers are flocking, so it would seem, to dealers to grab their brand new cars. More than 13,000 of us have registered a new car in just the first seven days of the month, which officially makes the first week of July a more prosperous seven days for the motor trade than the first week of January. Make no mistake: in the tight, insular world of the car trade, that's a monumental shift in buying patterns.
And those customers, you and me, are able to snap new cars up at some pretty amazing prices, depending on their trade-ins.
Thanks to the plethora of 'scrappage' deals around right now, some cars can be grabbed for as much as €4,500 off their supposed list price, even if all you have to trade in is an aged, rusty clunker (just make sure you read the small print regarding tax and insurance, and usually said clunker must be driven onto the forecourt under its own power - no trailers allowed). Just yesterday I spotted what must be one of the genuine bargains of the year: a Fiat 500 1.2 Pop that, thanks to €2,500 off the list price with a 'scrappage' trade in, could be yours for just €11,000. That's a small, smart, frugal and fun car for what some people spend on a holiday in Vegas. Crikey.
However, I wonder if those prices mask some worries within the industry. The last time we saw such prolonged and impressive discounts on new cars was in the US auto industry in the early 2000s, incentives that were heavily criticised at the time for undermining the profitability of both dealers and car makers and which, let's not forget, did nothing to stop the bankruptcy of both Chrysler and General Motors in 2009.
With worries over the economic fallout of Brexit hanging in the stuffy, humid July air, Irish dealers will certainly be welcoming those 13,000 customers in over the threshold, but they may well be worried at just how slim those 13,000 profit margins are and the sheer size of the discounts needed to generate the necessary footfall.
Still, those concerns are, perhaps and hopefully, for the future and for now we can concentrate on the cars that we're buying in our droves.
First and foremost, it should be taken as just a big a shock to the Irish car buying system that the best-selling car in the country is not only an SUV, but a Hyundai SUV at that. Traditionally, Irish buyers have for the past several decades either put a Fiesta, a Focus, a Golf or a Corolla at the top of the sales charts, and for all those decades, our natural national conservativism would not be shaken. We liked our sensible, affordable family hatches and saloons, and weren't going to be shaken from that.
Well, shaken we now are and we've now put the Hyundai Tucson in place as Ireland's favourite car. And by quite some margin. In this first week of 162, Hyundai has sold (or at least registered - one must always be vigilant to the possibility of pre-registering) 944 Tucsons, compared to Ford's 611 sales of the Focus in second place. That's a monumental shift in buying habits, not least because there's a solid €5k price gap between the best-selling Tucson and the best-selling Focus. Much of that is down to the affordability of that €5k when taken on a PCP, but there are other factors at play here too. The ubiquity of high-tech diesel power has allowed the Tucson to come to the market with fuel economy and CO2 levels that keep family budgets under control, and it's barely any more expensive to run than would have been a family hatchback bought in 2012.
SUV trendiness apart (and we really do love and crave our SUVs right now), what's driving Tucson sales right now is the combination of handsome styling, big boot, roomy back seat (space for three child car seats abreast, if you squeeze in a bit) and a high-quality cabin for reasonable monthly repayments. It has moved the Irish car buyer from their traditional homeland of €20-25k to around the €30k mark - another significant sea-change for 2016.
What of the rest of the top ten? Third place so far in July falls to the Nissan Qashqai, once the king of its segment, now seeing its primacy eaten away by the Tucson and by its upstart cousin, the Renault Kadjar. It remains a very fine car, but for the moment, it just can't compete with the Tucson, even though from a keen driver's perspective, the Qashqai is the better steer.
In fourth place we have the good old Toyota Corolla. There's little new that can be said about the Corolla, and while we are out of step with the rest of Europe in our affection for Toyota's four-door, there are good reasons for our love. Plain inside and out and not much fun to drive? All true, but somewhat overwhelmed by its build quality, its reliability, its space, its comfort and its residual values. For all the serious car buying reasons, the Corolla remains a smart purchase.
It's somewhat surprising to see the Ford Fiesta in fifth place and it is perhaps a reflection of Ford's near-peerless marketing machine, not to mention the still traditional nature of the Irish car buying public. It still looks good, the Fiesta, and it's still sharp to drive (and we love the three-cylinder EcoBoost engine, both in turbo and non-turbo forms), but the fact is that the Fiesta is now out-paced by the likes of the Skoda Fabia, the Honda Jazz and the Peugeot 208. It's in the top ten on the basis of value and familiarity, not mechanical merit.
The Toyota Yaris' place is somewhat better founded, in sixth place, largely because of Toyota's reliability factor, but also because it's one of the roomiest cars in its class - and never underestimate the power of giving the consumer apparently more than they're paying for. It's another fun-free zone, but you can't fault the practicality, and at least the recent facelift has made it look a little sharper.
Seventh place goes to the Hyundai i30, which is operating at a similar level to that of the Corolla. It's lost the surprise factor of the original i30 (when we were simply surprised that Hyundai could make a mainstream hatch that was that good), but it remains solid, sensible, roomy, reliable and perfectly blameless to drive. And a top-ten performance is very good for a car that's going to be replaced next year.
Also up for replacement soon is the Volkswagen Golf, albeit the new Golf that arrives at the end of this year will not be all-new, but merely a thorough facelift, we believe. Eighth place seems scant reward for what remains one of the best all-round family hatchbacks, but Volkswagen's image is still reeling from the results of diesel-gate, so perhaps that's the reason that Ireland's once-favourite car has slipped down the ratings.
Or perhaps it's that more buyers are cottoning onto the ninth placed car, the Skoda Octavia. If all of the Octavia buyers had bought Golfs instead, it would be in second place overall for July thus far, but then they'd have been missing out on fractionally better value, a bigger boot and back seats and a faint sense that, as with the rear seat room of the Yaris, you're getting more car for your money than your rightfully should be.
Finally, we come to the Kia Sportage, which means that the Irish top ten is bookended by mechanically identical Korean SUVs. The Sportage is arguably more striking at which to look than the Hyundai Tucson, but beneath the skin it's basically the same - same diesel engine, same quality, same space, same faintly underwhelming driving experience.
Who will be on top of the sales charts come the end of the year is still very much open, given this huge spike in July sales. It means the summer, once upon a time reserved for thumb-twiddling in dealerships, has become a viable sales battleground, and while those sales will now begin a steady slide towards January and the arrival of the 171 plate, there are eager buyers to be fought over.
It would be a brave man that wanders down to Paddy Power at this stage and bets against the Tucson keeping its best-seller crown to the end of the year, cementing a remarkable year of turnarounds and changes in Irish car buying culture. The dark clouds of Brexit, recession (again) and rising cost of ownership as emissions and fuel economy tests are tightened up are certainly on the horizon, but for now, we're snapping up our 162s as fast as they can be delivered.