Good news! No, really, there is some: now is the perfect time to buy a new car. Assuming you’re happy to be a recession vulture — which I am. And if you know what you’re doing — which, plainly, I don’t. So I enlisted the help of Jason Dawe, The Sunday Times’s resident car-buying expert to help me find a bargain.

“Many car dealers are hanging on by the skin of their teeth,” he said. “All the big brands will be desperate to sell; it’s just a matter hitting the right one.”

Right, then. Which to target? My last two cars have been a Fiat Punto (stolen from outside my house) and a 10-year-old Toyota Hilux (great fun, but on its way out). I hate tiny cars but I don’t want a gas guzzler, and I’m willing to spend £10,000.

Mitsubishi sales are down 74% year on year, and I quite fancy a Colt — small, but roomy on the inside, smart, well made, not too girlie. So, first stop, Hummingbird Motors in Finchley, north London, a smallish family business that does Mitsubishi and Kia.

The showroom is empty. “I’m thinking of buying a new car today,” I say brightly to the salesman, Graham. There’s a three-door, 1.3-litre Colt for £7,995, down from £8,595 the previous week (it was registered before March 1, when the new registration plates came in, so it’s now “last year’s model” — even though, to all intents and purposes, it’s brand new). There’s a five-door Colt automatic, priced at £10,574, and a new Kia Soul, which boasts a five-year warranty. I’m tempted to buy the Soul for one reason alone: the iPod connection, but it also has the word “SOUL”, woven into the seat fabric, which glows at night. I ask Graham what kind of deal he could do on a Colt, and he summons the boss, Larry.

“You should buy the car you want, not the best deal,” says Larry, in the same way your grandma might tell you to get a good-quality coat rather than a bargain that’ll fray after a few wears. When pressed, he says he’ll give me £1,000 off. “Hmm,” I say.

Suddenly, Graham becomes animated, and says: “If you’re looking for a deal, we could give you five grand off the Kia Sorento, or the Sportage (down from £17,945 to £11,995).” That’s more like it. Except it isn’t, really, because I don’t actually want one, as I’m frightened of Gordon Brown punishing me severely in the budget for buying an SUV.

It’s not just the fact that dealers have too many cars and not enough buyers that is driving prices down. Between tips on haggling (“Never make an offer, always ask the salesman what his best price is and let him do the talking”) Dawe tells me that as the month draws to a close dealers have an extra incentive for striking a deal: their sales target period runs from January to the end of March, so they need to flog their wares fast, if they’re to get their bonuses.

So I head up the road to Desira to look at Fiats. “You want a bargain? Sit down!” says Ahmed, with a big smile. Within minutes he’s offering me a Grande Punto 1.4 for £8,195 (from £10,985) and a Fiat Bravo Sport 1.4 T-Jet 150 for £12,995 (from £16,225). I could also save £2,625 on a two-tone green-and-cream Panda 4x4 diesel, if I wanted. No thanks, I’d rather shoot myself.

The Bravo’s quite fun, and he’s got some pre-registered ones, he says. By the end of the conversation I’m getting a slightly lower-spec 1.9 Bravo for £9,495, plus road tax, down from £14,325. “I suppose you need to earn your bonus somehow,” I say. “When business is down, it’s what we have to do,” he agrees. I say I’ll think about it.

“You don’t want to get a Fiat!” says Santo at Alan Day Volkswagen. I’d left the Fiat brochures sticking out of my bag to goad him. “VWs don’t depreciate! They don’t fall apart!” And he shows me a 2008-plate manual 1.6 Golf marked at £12,500, saying he’ll give it to me for £10,000 in black or silver, before launching into a, long excitable description of how well it does in safety tests.

Do I get any more off for paying cash? “We don’t want cash, we want you to take out finance! Ideally over five years!” His enthusiasm is slightly exhausting. I promise to ring him.

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