Have a look at the similar thread "Budget Joy or not". You will see that the situation post 2009 will be very different as the pre/post 2006 differentiation will cease and all post 2001 cars will be lumped together - the biggest losers in later years will be current band F cars. By the time it all comes in Alistair Darling will be given a good job like special Envoy to Basra and the new Chancellor can say "don't blame me, guv".
If you remove the emotion of it all though, and extra £200 on the tax for a typical SAAB is far less than the depreciation hit we will all suffer if we try to do anything about it like trading out to a Diesel.
The budget also removed the Biofuel tax concession (so it is unlikely to inspire the retailers to extend the biofuel supply network as it now makes biofuel uneconomic) and (potential LPG converters note) reduce the tax advantage given to LPG. As the main economic benefit of LPG is lower tax, and this is not the first tax hike on LPG, it may not be such a good long term strategy - you must see what the payback period is in comparison to the potential life of the car. Have a look on the treasury website and read the full budget statement.
RANT:
Back in the 1920's, the british car market was held back by arcane tax rules based on "RAC HP" - a calculation based on piston area. That led to the low revving long stroke engines that plagued us for decades and probably was one reason we dropped behind Europe and the Far East in engine design. Our new rules will lead to manufacturers focussing on CO2 output on particular tests rather than real world and may well hold the industry back. It looks like we will follow France - where most private purchase cars are Diesel - and have a quite seperate car market from USA and Far East. If you just taxed fuel (which is a tax on the kind of car you have and the way/amount it is driven - all is fair and you don't put up artificial barriers to good design. What we have now just encourages manufacturers to design around tests rather than around the real world.
RANT ENDS
The budget might have killed the SAAB Biofuel initiative, and the LPT turbo range, but the 1.9 TTID design might be a saviour for the brand.
