Cash for Clunkers did better than thought. SAY WHAT?

CNN Money
The government's Cash for Clunkers program resulted in a far bigger boost to car sales than was previously estimated, even by the government, according to a new analysis by Maritz Research, an automotive market research company.

Maritz estimates that a total of 765,000 new vehicles were sold because of the program. Those cars wouldn't have rolled off dealer lots without the offer, they say.

That's more than double the Department of Transportation's estimate of 346,000 sales that wouldn't otherwise have been made.

Maritz' estimate of additional new car sales resulting from the program is actually even larger than the total number of vehicles sold under Cash for Clunkers.

Government records indicate that a total of 677,000 new vehicles were purchased under the program.

According to Maritz, 542,000 of those sales were made to people who didn't plan to buy a car otherwise. Additionally, another 223,000 people were lured into dealerships by the program, learned they didn't qualify for the benefit, but purchased a car anyway.

"The results provide strong empirical evidence that CARS did not impede future sales," said Maritz vice-president David Fish, in an announcement. "Vehicles were sold to people who don't normally buy them."

Sales statistics since the Clunkers program ended also indicate that the program didn't "steal" sales from future months, Maritz said in its announcement.

Maritz surveyed 36,000 people who bought a new car or truck from July to August, 2009, the period when Cash for Clunkers was available.

And now an opposing opinion from Edmonds who does not appear to be on the government propaganda payroll:
Previous estimates for sales that wouldn't have been made but for the Cash for Clunkers program were as low as just 125,000, a figure arrived at by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Edmunds.com's estimate was based on an analysis of sales figures, not on survey results. That's a key difference, said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of Edmunds.com.

Car companies ordinarily have big rebate incentive programs in the summer, Anwyl said, but they didn't have to last summer because of Cash for Clunkers. All the government did was substitute its rebates for bigger rebates from carmakers.

"A correct question would have been would they have bought the car if General Motors had offered a similar rebate?" he said.

Furthermore, the 764,000 sales figure would be about 7.7% of all auto sales made last year, a figure Anwyl called unrealistic.

Maritz Research clients includes:
ACDelco
Acura
Bank of America
Capital One
Chase
Chrysler
Citigroup-Smith Barney
Comcast
Ford
General Motors
Honda
HSBC
Hyundai
Infiniti
Lexus
Mazda
Nissan
Penske
Toyota
Volvo
Wells Fargo

Let grandpa go out on the ledge here...next report from Maritz will be "astounding reductions in credit card delinquencies" and an unbelievable number of mortgages issued. Unbelievable due to the fact that the number of non-refinance mortgages will exceed the number of homes purchased.

Grandpa has to double check the article as I thought the Amazing and Better than Expected Cash for Clunkers results was a Christina Romer or Tim Geithner press release.