Mark Woodley, who owns a number of car dealerships in Tamworth, said there has been a major boom in used vehicle purchases over the past year.

People have also been favouring certain makes of cars, which he put down to a changed perspective on life due to COVID.

"Used car sales have been buoyant now for the past 12 months, I think there's a general demand for people to upgrade their cars and spending their hard-earned dollars locally on their vehicles," he said.

"We've definitely seen people over the pandemic saying 'we've been held back on certain things, now we're going to spoil ourselves and upgrade our car'.

"There's a demographic of people that are saying 'the pandemic has changed our perception on life, we are going to travel more, we are going to buy a new four-wheel-drive or SUV and go touring'."

He said a lot of people are buying the larger model cars and 'kitting them out' with towbars, bullbars and other outback travel accessories, while station wagons sat on the lot.

New car sales have slowed in recent times, which Mr Woodley said was down to a number of factors, including supply chain shortages.

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Parts are taking longer to arrive, are often substituted and are coming without spares, and this is largely down to the lack of one tiny product which is in everything from laptops, to gaming consoles and toothbrushes.

There is currently a global shortage of semiconductors, or microchips, and everyone wants to get a hold of one, said Mr Woodley.

"It's affecting every single new car manufacturer and their factories. The average car has 150 of these in them and the average electric car has 300 to 400 in them, and there's just a worldwide shortage of this product," he said.

"During the pandemic IT in general went through the roof because people were working from home, people were reliant on IT in the world of businesses," he said.

"Everyone from someone doing skill work to a person owning a corporate business had to upgrade their IT as quickly as possible.

"So the sale of semiconductors in the world went through the roof and it has caught the international motor industry by surprise, and they cannot make the vehicles."

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