Car Dealer Magazine: Issue 100

Business Publication of the Year

‘Looking back to those days creating the first few issues – on my own, in my conservatory – little did I know that those long hours, that hard work and those simple ideas would grow into what it has become today.’

Issue 100 | July 2016 | CarDealerMag.co.uk | £3.50

James Baggott

186-page special

CELEBRATION EDITION

Inside The great Can we Big Mike’s £100 build a WORST Caterham in trading up 10 test drives ever 100 hours? challenge Page 78

Page 96

Page 104

Can we Survey: The sell 100 top 100 cars in 100 cars to sell minutes? of all time Page 110

Page 116

Celebrating our 100th issue with 100 covers 2008 In April 2008 the first issue of Car Dealer landed on dealers’ desks. Little did they know it had been created by one man, wearing ear plugs because of the noise of the lashing rain on his conservatory ‘office’ roof. These days, Car Dealer is created by a passionate team with a real roof over their heads. Ear plugs are still very much en vogue, though, but now mainly because of the boss’s music choice...

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IGNITION.

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION EDITOR Dave Brown

dave@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @CarDealerDave

HEAD OF DESIGN Graeme Windell

graeme@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @graemewindell

FEATURES EDITOR Sophie Williamson-Stothert

sophie@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @1Sophie_W

SENIOR STAFF WRITER Andrew Evans

andrew@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @snavEwerdnA

STAFF WRITER Jack Evans

jack@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @jackrober

JUNIOR STAFF WRITER Laura Thomson

laura@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @lauramayrafiki

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGER Michelle Searle

michelle@blackballmedia.co.uk

ACCOUNT MANAGER Jon Hickey

j.hickey@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @CarDealerjon

SUITS CEO, BAIZE GROUP James Baggott james@thebaize.com Twitter: @CarDealerEd

MANAGING DIRECTOR BLACKBALL MEDIA Andy Entwistle andy@blackballmedia.co.uk Twitter: @CarDealerAndy Contributors Tim Naylor, Nick King, Nigel Swan, Jon Reay, Jonny Fleetwood, John Bowman, Ben Garside, Big Mike, Becca Chaplin, Jack Evans, Scarlett Josse, Gareth Bethell, Jason Pritchard, Jack Healy, Chris Jervis.

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Distribution Car Dealer is distributed to a database of up to 12,000 franchised car dealers, independents, service and repair sites, car manufacturers and suppliers. Advertisers are supplied with a print certificate every month.

Awards Winner of Best Business Publication, Headline Auto Awards 2012 & 2014

Company No. 6473855 VAT No. 933 8428 05 ISSN No: 1759-5444 Car Dealer is published by Blackball Media Ltd (Company No 6473855) and printed by Warners. All rights reserved. Conditions of sale and supply include the fact Car Dealer shall not, without our consent, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of in a mutilated way or in any unauthorised cover by way of trade or affixed to or as any part of a publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever.

Car Dealer is fully protected by copyright. Nothing may be reproduced wholly or in part without permission.

THIS is it: The 100th WELCOME. SO issue of Car Dealer Magazine. And before you disappear into the many, many pages we’ve produced, know that we’ve been working 100 times harder than normal to pack it with so much you won’t need another one for at least a few months. Well, that’s what I’ve told the team anyway, as they’ve been burning the midnight oil putting this one together, our biggest issue ever published.

Obviously that’s a lie and in four or, depending on production editor Dave’s mood, 4.1 weeks’ time, you’ll have another. But for now, let me tell you a little bit about what’s beneath the chocolate-coated surface this month – Jammy Dodger-style, this magazine is packed with goodness.

Planning for this monster started several months back with an ideas session that Alan Partridge and his ‘Monkey Tennis’ blue sky thinking would have been proud of.

The ideas that came, and quickly went, were wacky to say the least. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been ambitious with our plans – and by ambitious I mean more so than ever before.

First up we tasked Andrew ‘I Love A Good Spanner’ Evans with building a car in 100 hours. OK, we’re not talking a Ford Fiesta as, quite frankly, he’d fail hideously at that. No, this one is designed to be built in 100 hours, and comes in lots of handily-labelled cardboard boxes.

How I laughed when Caterham unloaded box after box into our lock-up. See how our resident Northerner and wannabe mechanic got on from p96.

TO MARK our 100th issue we wanted a special survey – so we asked you what your favourite cars were to sell of all time. We rang hundreds of dealers while hundreds more filled in our online survey, giving us a definitive Top 100 list of your favourite models to shift from your showrooms.

To celebrate, we got the top 20 together for a very special photo shoot at a positively torrential Rockingham Motor

Speedway. Thanks to the unbelievably damp conditions, our cover shot didn’t go quite to plan – which is why you won’t have seen it on the cover – however, the feature did.

We’ve loved talking to dealers like you about why they love selling these cars and our winner is not exactly surprising. Take a guess at what it is, then see where your choice finished in our Top 100 list, which starts on p116.

NEXT UP in our 100-themed special is a trip to BCA. We wanted to sell 100 cars in 100 minutes so Team Car Dealer headed to the firm’s flagship auction house at Blackbushe and tried not to get in the way too much while the firm made it happen. It was fascinating to watch the car-selling machine in action and I even got to smash the gavel down on at least one of those 100 cars. Find out if we managed to do it without causing too much chaos on p110.

AND FINALLY, I’ve embarked on an ambitious project to trade up as many cars as I can from a £100 starting stake in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. You may remember a while back I took on a similar task aiming for a Porsche 911.

Well this time I’ve set no specific car target, however, like all good journalists should have, I’ve got a deadline.

The plan is to see just how far I can get in 100 days then cash in and hand over the proceeds to GOSH. Find out how my challenge has begun on p104. Oh, and if you fancy helping out and being part of this fundraising task, get in touch – I need all the help I can get.

Enjoy this very special 100th issue…

James Baggott CEO, Baize Group CarDealerMag.co.uk | 05

06 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

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INSIDE. ISSUE 100 I JULY 2016

Dashboard Feedback Focus on Black Horse

38

Zafira B fires crisis latest Around the UK Marshall acquires Ridgeway

It’s almost as though we planned it... our 100th celebration issue coincides with our coverage of the biggest and best CDX yet!

Around the World

78

CDX16 Finance Big Mike Special

Forecourt Big Mike’s worst test drive disasters

32

Daksh Gupta on the biggest motor trade deal for a decade

146

‘‘

Audi A3 The top suppliers you need to help your business grow

96 Trading Up: 100th issue special 104 We sell 100 cars in 100 minutes 110 Your 100 top cars to sell 116 Building a Caterham Seven

75 Data File Car Dealer Club The Statistics Auctions Taking Stock Recruitment

86

90 94

Features

If you want to win, you can, even if you find yourself labelled the underdog.

Ben Garside

Suzuki Baleno

08 24 28 30 32 36 38 74 78

Suppliers’ Guide Money Talks Hot Property Long-termers Nissan say the new GT-R boasts improved usability, comfort and refinement – but what do we think? Andrew Evans reports . . .

James Baggott

164 166 168 170 173 174 177 178 179 182

OUR EVENTS...

As voted for by dealers, the Car Dealer Power Awards are unique.

Got a product or supplier you really like working with? Turn to page 18 to find out more.

The Car Dealer Used Car Awards, sponsored by Black Horse, celebrate the used car industry.

To get involved in this year’s event, call 023 9252 2434.

If you missed it, you missed out!

CDX16 took place on May 24 at The Wing, Silverstone and we have 32 pages of reports and pictures starting on page 38.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 07

FEEDBACK. Your comments via email to dave@blackballmedia.co.uk

Our website at CarDealerMag.co.uk

Don’t call customers tyre ONCE again, in your June issue, the hoary old line about customers as time wasters made an appearance. Many of your contributors seem to imagine hoards of potential customers, up and down the country, just waiting for more chances to waste the time of scores of innocent and sensitive car salesmen.

One incident, which was described in great detail, occupied two hours, leaving the salesman frustrated. I would posit the view that the customer was never asked, outright: can I sell you this car? In addition, the ultimate objection was never established.

Equally, in my view, the customer (who will have bought a car elsewhere) will view the experience as an utter waste of his time.

When a customer come into a sales environment, the sole purpose of the salesman is to sell, in a proper and professional way.

Anything else is facile and indulgent – the greatest curse for a budding salesperson is arrogance. Any person wishing to be successful at selling cars must ask this question: do I want to be a salesman or an order taker?

Picture of the month It’s a hard life being head of video at Baize Group ... but Nigel Swan carries out his duties with a cheerful smile and kind words for everyone – most of the time, at least! Our Nige had plenty of work to do at CDX – and many of the videos he shot are now online – but he did manage to find the time for a little massage kindly provided for him at the Carwow stand. Looks like he’s enjoying it !

Following this, you had various comments about email inquiries and how annoying they can be. Once again, we have salesmen complaining about customers contacting them in an apparent desire to waste their time.

The general consensus appeared to be: how dare a customer have the temerity to ask for the best price? Surely this is simply the opening gambit, the first move in the relationship/sale?

Rather than taking umbrage, look upon it as an opportunity and take advantage of this

initial contact by sending a courteous reply encouraging the person to telephone and/or come in to see you and your cars.

An innate or ingrained hostility towards customers is self-defeating and futile – and in bald terms loses sales and profits.

The pejorative phrases ‘time waster’ and ‘tyre kicker’ should be excised and those who use them should seek alternative employment.

David McConnon CarSalesTraining.com

www.desperateseller.co.uk | www.facebook.com/desperateseller.co.uk | twitter.com/despseller

08 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

On Twitter: Follow @CarDealerMag

Forum: CarDealerMagazine.co.uk/forum

kickers or time wasters!

Are apps worth the effort?

Any dealer have an app for their business? Does it work? Will it work? I guess if you encourage people to download it, then it has great benefits.

Thoughts guys and girls?

Umesh I looked at this a few years back, but why would a customer want to go on your app? I don’t think there is any point, far better have a news section within a responsive website or a blog. We had an online booking website a while back and it asked the user to add an app icon to their iPhone – but it was just a web page, basically. Put time and resource elsewhere is my view – each to their own, though. williamblackshaw

Top #CDX tweets Very pleased to be one of @CarDealerMag’s top 140 Most #Influential #Dealers! The full list was announced at #CDX16 Simon Bailes Peugeot @sbpeugeot

Good cop bad cop @tordoff_john @CarDealerEd CDX conference Silverstone.

Nigel McMinn @NigelMcMinn

Thank you to our good friends @Miappi for creating yet another beautiful social wall for #CDX16 @SilverstoneUK GForces @G_Forces Thanks to everyone who visited us at #CDX16 including @PrestigeDiesels (Double Winner!) & @specialistcars1 Auto Trader Insight @ATInsight #CDX16 is back & it’s bigger than ever! @CarDealerMag #eventprofs Silverstone Wing @SilverstoneWing

A good day ystday @CarDealerMag #CDX16 at @SilverstoneWing #UK #automotive cmbautomotive @cmbautomotive Thank you everyone who came along to our masterclass at #CDX16! We hope you enjoyed the day and the Q&A panels we sponsored!

Car Keys @CarKeys_UK

Thanks, feedback appreciated! Totally agree with you. The user needs a reason to download the app and use it! That was my argument with the app provider.

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DASHBOARD. MOTORPOINT

New site will be open next July MOTORPOINT has acquired a car supermarket site near Birmingham.

According to the company, the new site – in Oldbury, just off junction two of the M5 – is expected to be operational

by July 2016.

Mark Carpenter, chief executive of Motorpoint, said: ‘We are delighted to have completed this acquisition as our brand has proved extremely popular since we launched our Birmingham site three years ago.’

ACQUISITION

Jardine buys out Colliers Group

Service quality ‘holds the key’ to customer satisfaction bit.ly/servicekey

JCT600 revenues hit £1bn again as sales rise by 12pc ‘We are well placed to take full advantage of favourable conditions’

B

radford-based JCT600 has once again seen revenues break the £1bn mark with sales rising by 12 per cent to £1.145bn during 2015.

Pre-tax profit rose marginally in 2015 to £18.61m with the group continuing to perform well despite pressure on margins in a very competitive market.

New vehicle sales once again outperformed the market, rising by 10 per cent compared with the industry average of six per cent for the brands represented by JCT600.

Aftersales also saw growth with turnover rising by 12 per cent and gross profit by 13 per cent.

The group has continued to invest in improving the customer

by DAVE BROWN @CarDealerDave

experience, implementing new systems and increasing staff numbers to 2,300. It also made an £18.3m acquisition of two Mercedes Benz dealerships in Harrogate and York and has partnerships with many other brands including Porsche, Ferrari, below, and Lotus.

JCT600 was founded in 1946 as Brooklands Garage on Sticker Lane, Bradford, by current chairman Jack Tordoff who subsequently built the business from a single dealership into the largest privately-owned business in Yorkshire.

Jack’s son, John, is chief executive

of the company. He said: ‘It has been another year of strong growth. While the market is extremely competitive, we have proved able to continue to win market share based on our 70-year heritage of offering great value, a choice of quality brands and outstanding service.’

Nigel Shaw, group finance director at JCT600, added: ‘The economic outlook has improved greatly in the last few years and, once the Brexit debate is behind us, we expect business and consumer confidence to remain buoyant going forward.

‘JCT600 is well placed to continue to take full advantage of these favourable conditions and we hope to see a period of sustained growth.’

John Tordoff at CDX, p42

JARDINE Motors Group has increased its presence in the Midlands with the acquisition of Colliers Group. The deal includes the ownership of the firm’s Land Rover, Honda and Mazda dealerships located in Erdington, as well as its Jaguar Tamworth site and central parts hub.

CEO Neil Williamson, above, said: ‘This is a great acquisition as we combine Collier Group’s family business values with our cutting-edge retail experience.’

LINK-UP

Stoke businesses agree partnership TWO Stoke-based businesses with strong automotive backgrounds have agreed a partnership in an exciting new link-up.

Fuchs Lubricants, which has its UK headquarters on New Century Street in Hanley, has become the official bulk oil supplier to the successful franchised dealer group T G Holdcroft. Fuchs will be providing engine oils to the 16 Holdcroft dealerships across Stoke and Cheshire, which offer its customers a host of brands.

10 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Places are disappearing fast for this year’s rally FOLLOWING the success of last year’s event, Bangers4BEN 2016 has proved just as popular, with more than half of the 50 allocated spaces already reserved for the Ferrari-themed tour to Maranello this October.

After raising almost £56,000 for the automotive charity BEN in 2015, Car Dealer Magazine’s annual rally will take this year’s participants on a

picturesque route through France, before arriving at the home of the Prancing Horse where the teams will receive a guided tour of Ferrari’s test track.

The annual trip allows competitors to come up with the wackiest car designs and costumes for the four-day event. Thanks to British Car Auctions (BCA), the auction house responsible for selling the competitors’ vehicles,

Bangers4BEN raised just under £56,000 for the automotive charity BEN in 2015, and we’re aiming to raise the bar once again this year.

Participants must enter a sub£750 banger, which they can then customise as they see fit – the weirder the better! Kicking off in convoy, the teams will then head to Dover on October 8 before embarking on their European adventures. To secure your place on this year’s event, contact Kelly Neal at BEN on 01344 298100.

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 11

DASHBOARD. DEALER INTERVIEW

The ideas man at the helm of a thriving car city

“

I used to infuriate my fellow salesmen as they couldn’t understand why I wasn’t keeping a close eye on how many cars I was selling.

12 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Colin McNab runs Charles Hurst’s multifranchise operation in Belfast. JAMES BAGGOTT crosses the Irish Sea for a tour of the unique business

I

f there was an award for the nicest man in the car dealer business, Colin McNab would be picking up a very large trophy. The 58-year-old boss of Charles Hurst – Lookers PLC’s Northern Irish outpost – bursts into infectious laughter as he gives us a tour of the group’s amazing 30-acre Belfast site and it’s easy to see how he’s got so far.

The huge complex he oversees is home to 750 staff working in 16 individual dealerships.

It’s more of a car city than a motor park, a place where buyers can choose anything from a Dacia to a Ferrari.

The incredible business is a destination for Northern Irish car buyers, a veritable weekend day trip stopover where pretty much every visitor leaves with a new car.

McNab is the jovial boss leading the group’s ever-expanding site. He started in the workshops as an apprentice but was soon persuaded to try sales instead. It was here he found his forté.

‘I was never bothered about how many cars I sold,’ he tells me. ‘It was more about making the customer enjoy the experience so they would recommend me to someone else. I used to infuriate my fellow salesmen as they could never understand why I wasn’t keeping a close eye on how many cars I was selling – selling cars just sort of happened for me.’

You’d think with this sort of attitude McNab wouldn’t really have what it takes to rise to the top in the car sales CarDealerMag.co.uk CarDealerMag.co.uk| 13 | 13

DASHBOARD. DEALER INTERVIEW

business – but nothing could be further from the truth. His positive outlook and wicked way with words captivated his contemporaries and by 25 he was in charge of his very own Renault dealership.

‘When I took it over the site was on its backside,’ says straight-talking McNab. ‘That’s the best time to get involved – you can make a real difference. It had lost money for five years in a row.’ And make a difference he did. Within two years he’d turned the site around to become the most profitable in the group. A successful formula that he would repeat time and time again.

‘By 29, I was a franchise director,’ he added.

‘I was a shot to nothing for the management at 25, but it paid off for them. I had preconceptions before about what sales was, but because I knew little about it I could do it my own way. It turns out my way worked.’

The tricks McNab honed in that Renault dealership have helped shape his career – and the business he now leads as group operations director. He’s now in charge of 30 dealerships across Ireland, representing 20 manufacturers, and helps lead a group with an annual turnover of £400m. Charles Hurst is so successful it sells one in five new cars in Northern Ireland.

As McNab walks us around the huge Belfast site, the mix of manufacturers the group represents becomes clear.

Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley and Land Rover sit close together in the ‘premium zone’, as McNab likes to call it.

Elsewhere, there’s a Kia showroom, Peugeot, Toyota, Lexus, Nissan and Renault/Dacia sites alongside a clutch of other manufacturers.

There’s bikes, too – McNab says he’s just invested £600k in the BMW Mottorad dealership we walk around as he laments the fact it is currently underperforming. The Yamaha showroom just 14 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

James Baggott in conversation with Colin McNab, a man in charge of 30 dealerships representing 20 manufacturers

around the corner, meanwhile, is going great guns. One thing is obvious as we stroll around. McNab doesn’t like failure – or spending too much money. ‘I love doing great things on a budget,’ he says. ‘Our Premium Direct site was put together on a shoestring but performs fantastically.

‘That’s why the BMW bike showroom investment irks – it should be doing better for the money we’ve put in.’

I love McNab’s honesty. I’ve met few dealership bosses who are quite so open and frank. His attention to detail is just as sharp as his cutting remarks about underperforming sites. Every morning he walks the site – no small task when it’s 30 acres – but he pays particular attention to

“

I love doing great things on a budget. Our Premium Direct site was put together on a shoestring but performs fantastically. the customer parking zone. We wander through it and I ask who dared clamp his cars?

‘I did,’ he laughs. ‘Any car here longer than a week gets clamped. They’re not customer cars, they’ll belong to one of the dealerships on the site and they shouldn’t be here. The sales manager will be fined and he’ll pass that on to the employee who left it here. I have a big bugbear about customers being able to park.’

As we wander through the car park, I spot at least four cars with metal boots around the wheels. McNab chuckles: ‘It’s obviously not working quite as well as I’d like.’

We head to the newly-opened van centre. It sells commercial vehicles from all manufacturers and represents an investment of £200k.

‘Good value when you compare it to the BMW

Lexus is one of the brands represented

bikes site, isn’t it?’ he laughs. It’s clear McNab’s entrepreneurial spirit runs deep. He’s constantly pointing out new ventures he’s started up, new ideas he has for pieces of land yet to take shape and the next big development in his grand plan.

From the smart repair body shop that’s trebled in size in just three years to the location for a new £7.5m Jaguar Land Rover showroom that the group is about to start work on, McNab’s new projects seem never-ending.

It helps that he’s full of ideas. ‘The driving test centre is just down the road, so I want to start up a driving school,’ he tells me.

‘Think about it. For 10 hours these youngsters are test-driving your car – you’d do anything to get a customer into a test drive usually. It’s worth subsidising CarDealerMag.co.uk | 15

DASHBOARD. DEALER INTERVIEW

“

I found out that 30,000 people pass their test annually – that’s a big market to tap into and one we’ve managed to attract to the business.

Buyers with budgets of all sizes are catered for at the huge Charles Hurst site 16 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

their lessons just for the sales opportunities.’

It’s business ideas such as this that have helped Charles Hurst grow. Down the road is one of McNab’s babies – and it’s the one he seems most proud of. It’s called First Time Buyers and only stocks cars worth up to £5,500 and with group three insurance or below.

‘I have four kids and their friends would come round and say I have this much money to buy a car and ask where they should buy.

‘I’d obviously say Charles Hurst, but they’d complain there was nowhere to buy from here. I looked at our site and had to agree with them.

‘That’s where the idea for First Time Buyers came from.’

It’s been a roaring success. McNab spent three weeks in the thick of it, selling cars alongside his team when he first started it up, and he soon realised that when he explained that a small deposit and relatively small monthly repayments

WHY SHARING COSTS IS SO IMPORTANT

Carsmetic NI fixes scuffed alloys, dents and damaged paintwork

meant youngsters could afford a car for not much more than they paid for a phone contract, the sales flowed. Now the site sells 900 cars a year.

‘The site has been a huge success, and when you consider it only holds 50-60 cars, the fact it sells 900 a year is a great achievement,’ explains McNab. ‘I found out that 30,000 people pass their test annually – that’s a big market to tap into and one we’ve managed to attract to the business. I’m very proud of that one.’

But just as soon as McNab has explained that venture, he’s asking what I think he should do with a large office building that he’s thinking of converting into another bike showroom. ‘It’d be great for used bikes in here, don’t you think?’

Minutes later, he’s asking me what he should do with the old Land Rover showroom when that’s vacated. ‘Would an upmarket café work in here, do you think?’

His enthusiasm and energy are infectious – and

it’s clear to see how he’s been such a success.

But doesn’t he sometimes wish he’d used his entrepreneurial flair for his own gains?

‘Yeah, sometimes I do,’ he says, gazing into the middle distance. ‘I had the opportunity once. VW offered me the chance to partown a site and eventually, after seven years, own the whole thing. Many people got very rich doing that, but I turned them down. But what would I do now? I’m not the kind of person to sit back and do nothing. I’ve got the best job in the world – why would I want to give that up?’

After spending five hours in the inspirational leader’s company, I can see what he means.

Luck of the Irish? Not this time – McNab most certainly made his own. [CD]

CHARLES Hurst is the largest dealer group in Northern Ireland, with an annual turnover of £400m.

It employees 900 people who work across its 30 dealerships, representing 20 marques in six locations.

The Boucher Road site in Belfast is the largest motor retail village in Europe, covering 30 acres. The company has seen great success with used cars too, sold under the Usedirect, Premium Direct and First Time Buyer brands. It has five tyre outlets, which boss Colin McNab is planning to change into fast-fit centres – a trial project has seen profits double in the first four months since launch in the first location.

The group also boasts a booming smart repair centre and has even managed to muscle out well-known competition with a strong used car buying operation.

McNab says the key to success, though, is sharing costs. ‘We share administration and back office support across the group, which is vital and makes us far more efficient.’

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 17

DASHBOARD. RESULTS

Qashqais give Buyacar a boost ONLINE-ONLY motor retail specialist Buyacar.co.uk says it achieved record results in April, driven by a surge in sales of used Nissan Qashqais.

The company has announced that strong increases were recorded for the Range Rover Evoque and Audi A3. However, it was the first of the new-generation Qashqais, returning from two-year leases, that caught the attention of used car buyers most of all.

VOLVO

AA Inspections reveal vans have the most faults on dealer forecourts bit.ly/vans100

You’ve got the power! But not for long as voting closes soon!

With just a few days to go, there’s no time to lose if you want to take part

O

ur annual Car Dealer Power Awards ceremony will be held towards the end of July – so time is running out if you want to have your say on who are the best suppliers and business partners you work with.

In fact, voting closes on June 30, so you’d better be quick! As many readers will know, the awards aim to discover – and reward – the best manufacturers and suppliers, and we have already had a LOT of responses.

Many of them have comments from dealers about their choices, which is what we really appreciate. So please log on to CarDealerPower.com and

Connor moves to head up Polestar

by DAVE BROWN @carDealerDave

complete the form. It’s a case of the more the merrier. The more entries we receive, the more confident we will be of making sure the winners really deserve their prizes.

It’s not just about dishing out compliments, though. If there is someone you think has provided you with a sub-standard product or service, this is the ideal opportunity for you to have a bit of a moan, too.

As well as being able to assess your relationship with any manufacturer you represent, categories where you can make nominations include warranty supplier; prime finance supplier; online advertising and paint protection – plus many more.

There’s a posh dinner and awards ceremony at the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth on Thursday, July 28, where the identities of the winners will be revealed.

The whole idea behind the Car Dealer Power Awards is to allow the industry to be entirely forthright, whether that’s praising manufacturers and suppliers to the skies or hanging them out to dry.

Have no fear, though – the survey is anonymous. So, we’ll be telling the suppliers and agencies what we found, but not who told us.

The Car Dealer Magazine team will only assess the answers, not the envelopes, forms or IP addresses of those who enter online, and once we’ve gathered all the information we need, we’ll know who are the best of the best.

VOLVO Cars UK managing director Nick Connor has been promoted to the position of chief executive at Polestar – Volvo’s whollyowned performance arm.

He will take up the position on July 1 and moves to Polestar after four years as managing director of Volvo Car UK, during which time sales rose by 60 per cent. He will replace Björn Sällström, who has been acting CEO since Volvo’s acquisition of Polestar last July.

CLIVE SUTTON

Tuning options for new Ford Mustang RENOWNED supercar dealer Clive Sutton has revealed its Sutton Bespoke tuning programme for the new right-hand drive Ford Mustang.

The programme comprises a suite of packages designed to enhance the car’s performance, handling and styling. Clive Sutton, based in central London, has engineered its packages to appeal specifically to UK and European buyers. The upgraded suspension is said to be a particular highlight.

18 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Profits are up, but the market’s more challenging THE average UK motor dealership produced a profit of just over £9,000 in April – an improvement of £6,000 over the same month in 2015, according to profitability specialists ASE. But the company says there has been a drop in the return-on-sales ratio, which shows the growth in turnover levels in the current market.

ASE adds: ‘Given the current vagaries of the market, it will be

impossible to tell whether this is a genuine profitability improvement or the effect of manufacturer fast-start activity until the end of June.

‘One thing which is for certain is that the level of genuine retail activity has undoubtedly slowed in the second quarter. Whether this is the result of people postponing purchases until we have some certainty over the referendum or whether it is a result of

a genuine slowing of demand we will have to wait and see.

‘Irrespective of the slowdown of retail demand we continue to see a growth in registrations, driven through fleet registrations. Whilst registration levels are improving, the market is definitely more challenging than it was. Fingers crossed it will improve after the referendum.’

Market Insight, p171

Independent Inspections, give customers trust, in the quality of your vehicles.

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 19

DASHBOARD.

Delighted with new franchise mix for fold After Vertu Motors bought Gordon Lamb Group in June, Rebecca Chaplin interviewed Robert Forrester, Vertu’s chief executive, about the deal for the Trade Plates News show Q: What appealed to you about Gordon Lamb Group?

A: Well, it’s a very nice series of franchises in a very distinct geographical area. We’ve already got scale in Derbyshire but this moved us to 14 dealerships and the franchise mix we felt was very beneficial. There’s clearly another Land Rover dealership but it brought us Toyota for the first time. It gave us additional scale in Skoda – we had one Skoda outlet in Darlington and this gave us an extra two – and another Nissan dealership.

A: It was the leading global brand by market capitalisation last time I looked. So, clearly, they’ve got the financial wherewithal to be one of the future winners in terms of product development and technology. It was a gap in our portfolio and it was a gap we wanted to fill. We were delighted to gain the franchise.

Q: Will you be rebranding the dealerships?

A: It’s actually a mixture of strategies. The Skoda and Nissan ones are going to be Bristol Street Motors, Toyota is Vertu Toyota and we’re retaining the Gordon Lamb branding in Chesterfield for the foreseeable future.

Q: Could you tell us a bit more about the acquisition?

A: We’re delighted with the purchase because I’ve known the Lamb family for a number of years and we’ve always Q: You’ve been making a few big looked at that business and thought acquisitions this year. How has it would fit in well to our portfolio. that been?

It’s a well-run business, the family has A: When we raised additional capital grown that business over many years Robert Forrester in March, we set out to our investors a and we’re delighted to have brought it number of different transactions. We’ve into the group. now transacted two out of three and have used quite a significant percentage of the capital that Q: Did you think they would sell to you we raised. We have a property transaction that we eventually, then? aim to raise as part of that and we’ll be looking at A: No, you can never be presumptuous. They other things, but we’ve spent quite a lot of money approached us just before Christmas and it since October last year and we’ll be working on seemed to work for both parties very smoothly. the integration of these new dealerships to make sure that we’re set for the future.

Q: Were you looking to add the Toyota brand to your portfolio?

Watch it in full at http://bit.ly/TPNews7

TRADE PLATES TV LISTINGS There’s a packed line-up of shows coming your way on Trade Plates TV. To watch live or catch up, head over to tradeplates.tv where you can talk directly to our guests using our chatroom system.

June 14, 3pm: Car Auctions with Lawgistics Rebecca will be visiting Letchworth Car Auctions to talk to owner Simon Morgan and auctioneer Richard Hicks.

June 21, 10am: CarGurus CarGurus co-founder Langley Steinert, right, will be in the studio to take your questions.

He will be talking about CarGurus’ success in the US

and how it plans to replicate that over here.

June 28, 3pm: CarShop Chief executive of CarShop Jonathan Dunkley, who took part in our independent dealer panel at CDX16 (see p44), will be talking about hitting £5m in profit for 2015, as well as how he sees the used car market now and in the coming months and years.

Twitter: @tradeplatestv 20 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Facebook: Trade Plates TV

UNDER PRESSURE ON SALES CHAIRMAN of Perrys Ken Savage joined Rebecca in the studio at the end of May to talk about car sales in 2016. Despite the continued rise in new car sales reported each month, Savage said he felt that used was slightly stronger at Perrys.

‘New cars are doing all right and used cars are probably doing quite well. We’re up yearon-year for used car profitability,’ he said.

‘The pressure that we’re under with new car sales does affect our used car business.

We’re seeing an element of customers coming in for a used car and getting moved to new cars. That is happening more than it ever has in the past, but it does make the whole business work.’

Savage also explained how he believes the motor trade will have to deal with the recent increase in the National Living Wage by passing it on to customers.

‘It’s going to increase our cost base and that will have to be passed on one way or another in our prices.’

The rise was introduced on April 1, 2016, increasing from £6.75 to £7.20 an hour for workers aged 25 and over.

As Savage explained, Perrys’ workforce is critical to its business – meaning the increase won’t be causing job losses but a rise in prices.

‘This is the government trying to move some of its responsibility on to business. It’s not unique to the motor trade. It’s something we just have to deal with,’ he said.

You can hear more from Savage by visiting tradeplates.tv/live where you can watch the show in full.

Website: tradeplates.tv

You need to be aware of the ‘millennials’ and how they shop

I

’m not trying to make you feel old or trying to make myself sound young, but as I’m in my mid-20s I count as one of those Generation X or Y-ers or whatever we’re referred to by marketeers these days.

We’re known for never looking up from our mobile phones, buying everything online and already deciding what car we want before we’ve even browsed through your website inventory.

It’s a recurring topic on our live shows, and I want to think that I’m not really like those ‘millennials’.

Unfortunately, I’m fairly aware of the strange attachment I have to my phone.

I’ll also always try to buy something online first and will only reluctantly make my way to a real shop after at least checking how much it will cost online and if it’s in stock. Today, for example, I realised that I’d left my phone charger in the office and was heading away for a couple of days. No problem, I thought. As I was on my way into London and had a little time to spare, I would venture round the corner to the Apple Store to buy a new charger.

By this point – from overuse – my phone had died.

I knew there was an Apple Store in Regent Street but I couldn’t check what time it would open – and by the time I reached it, the store was still closed.

My meeting was less than half a mile away, so I headed in that direction expecting to find it easily.

Lacking Google Maps, I wandered up and down random streets asking cab drivers and coffee shops for directions.

I eventually inquired at Waterstones, where a cashier used Google Maps on her iPhone to find out that it was, in fact, two doors down.

What I needed was to add to my already (mostly) positive mobile experience. I decided to buy an Apple Watch – as long as I could order it online, pick it up online and pay monthly. I know – what a stereotype.

I looked it up on its website, and for £13 a month I could be the proud owner of a new Apple Watch in rose gold, so I returned to Regent Street after my meeting.

‘Can I buy an Apple Watch on finance and walk away with it today?’ I asked.

Apparently not, unless it’s more than £400. No sale for you then, Tim Cook.

This might sound sad, you might even relate to it, it might also sound as though I’ve been extremely spoiled,

Rebecca

but on my train journey away I started reflecting on why paying monthly comes so naturally to me.

I’ve had a mobile phone since I was 11 years old – that’s more than half of my life that I’ve been tied into 12-month contracts. Admittedly, I wasn’t paying for these, but I was the one with the Carphone Warehouse catalogue. I’d make notes about what phone would give me the best deal, circling the icons offering various specifications.

I was also the one taking the sales calls under my desk in the back of the classroom before I’d even taken my GCSEs. ‘Dad, I’ve just had a call from O2 and they say that if I upgrade now I can get the Sony Ericsson GenericNumbers-and-Letters for the same price over 12 months.’

Wonderful, he thinks. I’ve got a phone that will work for the next year and he hasn’t had to pay any more than he’s already committed to. Customers aren’t interested in the

Chaplin ‘I was also the one THE VIEW FROM BEHIND THE SCENES

taking the sales calls under my desk before I’d even taken my GCSEs.’ full cash price. They want the least effort and the lowest payment option that they’ll only mildly notice syphoning out of their bank balance each month – they won’t have to save for it, either.

I know that Apple isn’t going to call me up in 12 or 18 months and try to sell me something new, and the worrying thing about this is that it puts me off buying one – slightly.

I don’t like the thought that in a year, maybe less, I’ll be stuck with an outdated product with no option to move into something new without starting the process myself.

I’ve had to face the fact that I am very neatly packaged into my ‘millennials’ box.

Unfortunately, if I can’t at least find it online, for an attractive monthly price and own it within 24 hours, I’m probably going to go somewhere else – and if you’re not thinking about this attitude to shopping you really should.

Who is Rebecca Chaplin?

Rebecca is head of editorial video at Blackball Media and presents news programmes and features on its online video channel Trade Plates TV

Go to TradePlates.tv now to see our latest videos CarDealerMag.co.uk | 21

DASHBOARD.

High demand sends dealer group back to drawing board Space available for new and used Nissan models has been extended

T

he Trenton Group has expanded its plans for a new multi-million-pound Nissan dealership in Grimsby. The three-acre, £3m site in Altyre Way is currently in the final stages of construction and will open early next month, creating 35 jobs.

But group bosses were so overwhelmed by the public’s reaction to the temporary site – breaking all sales targets set by the manufacturer – they extended the space available for new and used Nissan models.

Andrew Woodhall, pictured, brand manager at Trenton Nissan, said: ‘We’re very excited about the opening of our new site, which will be one of the largest and most impressive Nissan outlets in the north of England. But we underestimated just how well local people would take to

22 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

the brand and were blown away by the volume of vehicles we sold from our temporary site.’

He added: ‘As a result of the success of the temporary site, we went back to the drawing board and changed things around a bit to accommodate more cars and meet demand.’

The family-owned Trenton Group operates three sites in Hull – the main Nissan dealership in the city and two used car outlets – and has built

an enviable reputation for excellent customer service over more than 30 years of trading.

Once open, the Grimsby dealership will feature Nissan’s new state-of-theart retail concept, which combines modern technology and creature comforts, to enhance the overall customer experience.

The showroom will accommodate up to 14 new Nissan models.

Outside, there’s a huge forecourt with enough space for 150 CARED4 quality assured used Nissan models – one of the largest stocks of used Nissans in the north.

The site also boasts a high-tech seven-bay workshop fitted with all the latest Nissan diagnostic equipment and is staffed by an experienced team of manufacturer-trained technicians and master technicians.

SURVEY

Alan Day team simply the best!

ALAN Day New Southgate has been voted the best Volkswagen dealership in the UK for customer care and service. The branch scored the highest in a survey of 250 dealers around the country, topping its Hampstead branch which came in second.

The independent survey quizzed every customer who purchased a Volkswagen between January and March 2016. Paul Tanner, managing director of Alan Day Volkswagen, said: ‘We are very proud to be voted the number one retailer for combined customer care and service satisfaction in the UK. ‘This was an independent survey and is an amazing achievement. It proves that our customer service is second to none. We always go the extra mile to keep customers happy.’

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DASHBOARD.

I

t’s certainly been a busy nine months or so for Richard Jones, managing director of Black Horse. And Jones, who took up his current position last July, says it has been one of the most enjoyable spells of his career, too.

Black Horse, of course, is the motor finance arm of Lloyds Banking Group, and is the UK’s leading provider of motor finance, with a range of motor loans and hire purchase products. As its MD, Jones heads up an operation that supports 5,000 motor dealers, last year alone helping more than 200,000 customers with point-of-sale motor finance for cars, bikes, caravans and motorhomes.

So what has made life so hectic since last summer? Well, for a start, Black Horse was having a very busy time of it. Jones told us: ‘Black Horse had a very strong year in 2015. We had good levels of lending growth, both within new and used finance – the new driven by our manufacturer partnerships, the biggest one being Jaguar Land Rover. Our used business grew very strongly, too.

‘We grew sales but we also grew market share.

We were very pleased with the progress we made and it was quite an eventful year for the industry

“

Clicks and bricks is the successful model for the future.

– I joined at an interesting time.’

Jones is, of course, referring to the advent of FCA regulation. He added: ‘I joined just as that was starting to land across the market. It was fascinating to get a sense of how the industry was adapting to that. The industry, generally speaking, has taken it very seriously and done a pretty good job of it.

‘I would say that we’re at the end of the beginning with regards to the regulation. We have a responsible regulator in the FCA. We know they are looking at a number of areas. They’re interested in remuneration across the whole consumer credit market, not just motor finance.

They’re also interested in things like vulnerable customers, customers in financial difficulties and so on. The motor finance market is going to have to continue to look to improve and drive for good customer outcomes.

‘The market has done a great job to get us to where we are but I expect more change. I think we’ll have a period now where the regulator will reflect on what they have found. One of the things that any market has to drive for is consistency of outcomes.

‘At the end of a day this is a market where you’ve got thousands of trained sales staff dealing with several million customers a year.

2424 | CarDealerMag.co.uk | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Richard Jones has had a busy time in his new role at Black Horse

The main heavy lifting has been done now. We should expect further refinement but I think, more importantly, we should look for further refinement as a market. Almost regardless of what the regulator thinks, we should keep improving for ourselves.’

Jones makes an interesting point about the FCA’s purpose in life – the fact that it has a role to play to ensure a healthy level of competition.

He told us: ‘One area in which I’m interested, and which could develop more, is the FCA looking more closely at the relationship between manufacturers – captive finance providers – and retail dealers.

‘I sometimes see the pressure that retail dealers get put under when they’re operating in a very fine-margin market.

‘When those relationships are healthy, and they all come together to give customers good

outcomes and good value, then that’s great.

However, it doesn’t always work like that and the danger is that pressure gets applied – particularly where it’s an in-house captive, because the inhouse captive and the manufacturer become one and the same shareholder. That causes me to raise my eyebrows.

‘Hopefully, one by-product of the consolidation we’re seeing at the moment is that dealers are able to push back. If they want to choose their finance provider, they should be free to do so. It’s important in any healthy market that you have competition in finance provision.’

The automotive world is such a fascinating one that Jones is very keen to talk about what he’s learned over the past nine months. Are there any areas of the market that have caught his eye?

‘What I’ve been impressed with in coming into the market is the professionalism of some

‘The role of the retailer has changed because of digital.

Finance has to move with that’ The managing director of Black Horse, Richard Jones, certainly had to hit the ground running when he took up the role last year. DAVE BROWN reports

WELL-DESERVED RECOGNITION FOR A VITAL PART OF THE MARKET BLACK HORSE will be the headline sponsor Car Dealer Magazine’s Used Car Awards for the fourth time this November. And Richard Jones is proud of his company’s involvement in the event.

He told us: ‘It’s great to again have the opportunity to sponsor the Used Car Awards. We know from experience that recognition from industry peers goes a long way and can be valuable to any business. In recent months, we’ve won several awards from the likes of Motor Finance and Credit Today, and whilst awards themselves may not be the sole objective of our business, it’s hugely pleasing when your products, services, innovation and people are regarded as best in class. So it’s good to be able to play our part in the Used Car Awards which recognise a part of the market that can often be overlooked.’

of the used car supermarkets in particular,’ he told us. ‘I think that if you look at those over a ten-year period, they’ve gone from strength to strength as a segment. When you go and spend time with them, which I have, many of them are incredibly intelligent in how they run both their

buying processes and their retailing sites. They are smartly-run operations with a real handle on the detail. They’re profitable businesses, too, making a good return but also giving great value to customers.

‘The used market in terms of overall finance levels has grown significantly in recent years.

‘PCPs are arguably at their peak in terms of penetration. If you look at PCP penetration by value, it’s well over 80 per cent now.

‘It’s difficult to see that growing any more. I think a combination of that and the fact that new car volumes are really peaking. We thought they were going to peak in 2015 and they are showing growth again in 2016.

‘We’re way above pre-crisis levels of new car sales now. I don’t think anyone can tell when we’re going to get a level of cooling down or correction but it’s got to happen at some point.

We can’t just continue growing.’

If there’s one word that crops up repeatedly when it comes to modern-day automotive sales and marketing it’s ‘digital’. Richard Jones’s arrival as Black Horse MD coincided with the company announcing an investment programme of more than £10 million in its point-of-sale and dealer support technology.

He told us: ‘We’ll end up spending more than that actually. I think Black Horse has always had a reputation for driving point-ofsale technology.

‘We had E-sigs in the market before anybody else, and last year we launched Signit, giving dealers the ability to complete the whole finance agreement online.

‘That’s been rolled out now to more than 4,000 dealers. We’re also looking to invest in our front-end platforms and we’re right in the middle of that next swathe of investment, so watch this space! We’ll have some further developments that will be live before the end of this year.

‘And then we’ll be digitising more of our backend and customer processes so that customers can inter-operate with us more on a self-serve basis. A lot of customers like to do that.

‘I think the final point of that is how we work with dealers to share data on existing customers to help dealers retain the customers that they’ve got. We want to retain customers but we only do that by helping dealers retain customers.

‘As a finance provider, we see that as a really important investment area for us. Every car retailer out there is needing to embrace digital.

You see the car-buying journey digitised more and more. Customers are more likely to be in a buying mindset when they’re in a showroom these days.

So it changes the nature of what the retailer is there to do because digital has done a lot of that pre-selection for them. Car finance has to move with that.’

So is the traditional plate-glass showroom on the way out? ‘It’s a hotly debated point,’ replies Jones. ‘For me, you get different types of car buyer. You get a very functional car buyer, a very emotive car buyer, and all shades in the middle.

Fundamentally, a customer is buying something that’s very expensive.

‘It’s a physical asset. Therefore, having a physical connection with that purchase under a franchise or a brand that a customer places trust in, is going to remain important.

‘John Lewis, which is arguably the best digital retailer of the last 10 years, has opened a large number of stores in that time even though they have embraced digital massively. Digital, working well, complements a physical store presence.

Whether you have fewer of them, I don’t know, but I don’t see a world where that physical presence disappears at all. I think customers enjoy it, they enjoy seeing the product and experiencing the product. Clicks and bricks is the successful model for the future.’ [CD] CarDealerMag.co.uk | 25

DASHBOARD. INVESTMENT

Tootle launching new ad campaign TOOTLE.CO.UK is set to launch a nationwide advertising campaign with an initial spend of £300,000.

The Tootle platform matches private sellers with dealers wanting to source specific cars directly from the public. The campaign is expected to add hundreds of new cars to the platform each week, all of which will be available exclusively to the trade. The tootle.co.uk TV campaign will appear from the beginning of July.

Wessex Garages hosts football match in aid of charities bit.ly/wessex100

Vertu Motors celebrates the talent and hard work of staff ‘It is only right that we honour colleagues that have made success possible’

MITSUBISHI

100,000 sales of Outlander PHEV MITSUBISHI has sold 100,000 Outlander PHEVs since the car’s launch in 2012 – with the UK rapidly becoming the leading market in the world for the manufacturer’s plug-ins.

Lance Bradley, managing director of Mitsubishi Motors UK, said: ‘To reach this milestone is a fantastic achievement. Consumers in the UK have overwhelmingly made it their preferred choice for ultra-low emission motoring too.’

SUZUKI

Shares fall after tests admission JAPANESE car maker Suzuki has apologised for improper road tests on some of its models but denies it illegally falsified mileage numbers.

Suzuki’s shares fell in Tokyo trading amid Japanese media reports the company might have cheated on its mileage data.

Suzuki said the dubious tests did not affect models sold abroad. The company’s chairman, Osamu Suzuki, appeared before reporters at the transport ministry and bowed to apologise.

26 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

V

ertu Motors has recognised the outstanding work of its colleagues during the group’s annual Masters Awards. The awards, which have been held for the past five years, are a chance for the group’s CEO, Robert Forrester, to acknowledge the achievements of colleagues from across Vertu’s 127 UK outlets.

The winners were presented with their awards by BBC presenter Steph McGovern and Robert Forrester at a ceremony held at Oulton Hall hotel, on the outskirts of Leeds.

Following the ceremony, Britain’s Got Talent finalists Old Men Grooving entertained and attendees danced the

night away with live music from the Rat Pack, who treated guests to their own renditions of some of the bestknown classic swing songs.

The awards cover all aspects of the business and recognise colleagues from every corner of the group, from sales executives, drivers and accountants to technicians.

The winners were chosen from more than 5,000 colleagues for their outstanding work throughout the year and of demonstrating the five keys of success: character, attitude, drive, energy and talent.

Forrester said: ‘As a group, we are passionate about recognising and rewarding hard work and talent,

and these awards are a chance to do just that. Vertu Motors has enjoyed another great year, so it is only right that we honour colleagues that have made this success possible with a fantastic night of celebrations.’

He added: ‘This year we have some new faces at the awards, which showcases some of the new talent we have in our team as well as many long-serving colleagues.

‘Every colleague nominated has performed to an exceptional level and as we continue to grow, it gets harder to win an award.

‘Every winner deserves recognition, but so do the teams supporting them across the business.’

JLR profits plummet despite record sales figures PRE-TAX profits at Jaguar Land Rover dropped by more than £1bn – despite the manufacturer selling a record halfmillion-plus vehicles.

It notched up sales of 521,571 cars during the year-end to March – an increase of 13 per cent, helped by the popularity of the Jaguar XE. Revenue was up by £342m to £22.2bn.

However, the impressive sales figure wasn’t reflected in the yearly profit figure, which fell to £1.56bn from £2.6bn. As part of the slump,

JLR was forced to write off nearly 6,000 vehicles worth £157m because of an explosion at a container storage station in China last August, which left more than 100 people dead and injured hundreds more.

Quarterly profits at parent company Tata Motors, however, trebled to 51.7bn rupees (£527m) from 17.17bn rupees during the same quarter in 2015.

The news comes as it was revealed that automotive supplier Magna International is to build a world-class

aluminum-casting plant in Telford to make lightweight parts for JLR. The new facility is expected to be approximately 225,000 square feet and will create up to 295 jobs. Construction is expected to start this autumn, with production beginning in 2018.

John Farrell, the president of Cosma International, an operating unit of Magna International, said: ‘We are excited to work closely with Jaguar Land Rover in the development of this project.’

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DASHBOARD. INVESTIGATION

A BATTERED BRAND VAUXHALL has been hit by a barrage of negative headlines in recent weeks, thanks to the fact its Zafira B models continue to burst into flames.

It’s possible the issue is affecting the brand’s reputation more widely, as latest registration figures from the SMMT show sales of Vauxhall cars were down by more than 20 per cent year-on-year in May. A total of 16,300 Vauxhall cars were registered in the UK during the month, 21.25 per cent down on the figure for May 2015, which was 20,698.

It’s also been announced that nearly 235,000 Vauxhall Zafira B models made between 2005 and 2014 will be recalled – for a second time – because of a problem with the heating system, said to be the cause of the blazes.

Vauxhall first argued that the fires were caused by ‘improper’ repairs to the people carriers’ blower motor resistors following the initial wave of blazes but concerned customers have been producing evidence to challenge this.

The debate has spread to social media.

A group of more than 15,000 people have been discussing the issue on Facebook – and even on the day Car Dealer went to press, another picture of a Zafira on fire was posted online.

28 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Is it time to get rid of the Vauxhall brand completely?

The manufacturer has come in for heavy criticism because Zafira B models are bursting into flames, but in an exclusive interview, the company hits back and answers some tough questions. SOPHIE WILLIAMSON-STOTHERT reports Do you now accept that the fault, which is causing the fires, is a manufacturing or design fault?

No it isn’t. It’s a misrepair. The heater resistor is used in a number of different cars, not just by us. It’s a well-established design produced by a supplier who’s been making them for years.

What you don’t expect to see is people repairing a component that’s supposed to be thrown away and replaced.

I want to stress that the blame is not with the workshops. Allegedly, we’ve said it’s independent garages that are doing this [carrying out incorrect repairs]. We have never said that.

We’ve said these parts are being misrepaired; they’re being repaired when they shouldn’t be – they should be thrown away.

We’re not saying who’s doing the repairs, we’re not even sure if the owners have had the repairs done, or whether the repairs have been done

“

We’ve said these parts are being misrepaired; they’re being repaired when they shouldn’t be – they should be thrown away. before they’ve taken ownership of the vehicle.

Remember – most of these cars now are in their third, fourth and fifth owners’ hands.

When the part is misrepaired, you get a fire.

Who’s done the repairs here doesn’t really matter – it’s been done and it shouldn’t be done. That’s why, as part of the second recall, there’s a big sticker there now that says ‘if this part fails, throw it away­, don’t repair it’.

We’ve never blamed anybody, we’re not in the blame game here; what we need to do is make sure our customers are safe, and that’s why we’ve gone to [the trouble of] making such big changes to the vehicle to make sure they are safe – that’s what we have to do.

We are hearing reports from Zafira owners that their insurance policies have increased dramatically in price, even if they have not made a claim. How do you intend to compensate them?

Apparently some insurance premiums have gone up, and some haven’t. That’s not a matter for us.

Unfortunately, we can’t legislate for that. There’s no compensation planned for customers who have been paid by their insurance companies for the value of their vehicle. But people have been writing to us – we’ve been saying: ‘Look, if you’ve had personal losses then you can write to us and we’ll consider every case on its merits.’

But we haven’t yet started any big compensation plan.

The dramatic scenes and aftermath of Vauxhall Zafira B models suddenly bursting into flames

Dealers and owners are finding Zafiras are now almost unsaleable and residual values have fallen. Will you compensate them or operate a buyback scheme?

No, again, the younger vehicles – the less affected vehicles being the 12 to 14-plate cars – seem to be fine. To be honest, the older vehicles are in the second-hand market outside of any network.

They’re on used car lots for not a lot of money, so there’s no plan for any campaign to buy back these vehicles at all. This car has been out of production for two years now.

We saw Vauxhall sales drop dramatically last month, with some experts citing the fires as a reason. Do you share that view?

No, we don’t think so. The sales dip in April has no relation with Zafira and hasn’t caused any severe impact to the brand.

Has the Zafira nameplate been irreparably tarnished? Could this be the time to ditch the entire Vauxhall brand maybe?

Oh, that’s

absurd, that’s absurd. The Zafira Tourer, which is the current model, is not suffering in terms of sales, and certainly because the classic model has gone, that’s out of most people’s minds, apart from the current owners – and they’re the people we’re getting sorted out in terms of safety. But the brand we certainly don’t believe is being tarnished and is still very successful on Zafira Tourer. We don’t think there will be any long-term harm, as long as we continue to recall these vehicles as quickly as we possibly can and get the second recall up and running as quickly as possible. We don’t believe there’s any long-term harm to the brand and certainly not to Zafira, because Zafira Tourer is continuing to sell well in the market.

Looking at the private Facebook group, there are a lot of frightening stories being reported.

What would you say to a mother who is scared to drive her children to school?

They should read their letter. It’s very specific – even on the website. It says in the meantime ‘use your heater only on position zero or position four’. That’s the advice to remain safe. Simple as that. We are preparing for the second recall and will be prioritising mailings to the older vehicles. [CD]

There have been weeks of negative headlines concerning Vauxhall Zafiras CarDealerMag.co.uk | 29

30 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

MANCHESTER: Already a Honda hat-trick hero, a fleet sales manager at Swansway Honda Manchester is on target to being named Honda UK corporate manager for the fourth consecutive year. Having been based at the family-owned business on Chester Road for five years, Lee Yates first claimed the award in 2013 and has since gone on to receive the accolade every year.

In 2015, Yates sold 300 Honda units for the Japanese brand and has already taken his 300th order of 2016, just five months into the year.

Lee’s on course for award number four

FIFE: A football team in Glenrothes will be heading out in new kit next season thanks to the support of a motoring business. Glenrothes Athletic 2005’s football team will be donning new shirts for the 2016/17 season after receiving a cash boost from Specialist Cars Volkswagen Fife. The team picked up the new kit from the Caxton Place business after taking a tour of the dealership, including the bodyshop and workshop.

Nickie Turner, Glenrothes Athletic football coach and technician at Specialist Cars Volkswagen Fife, said: ‘We are grateful for the sponsorship. It gives the kids a bit more pride when they look their best.’

Kids kitted out thanks to VW outlet

What has been hitting the headlines on the home front? Here’s a round-up of stories

BRADFORD: Bristol Street Motors Renault and Dacia in Bradford has appointed a new general manager with more than two decades of experience in the motor industry. Darren Simpson entered the motor retail industry after getting a taste for it at the age of 16, when he worked as a valeter during the summer holidays for a small family-run dealership. Now, 21 years later, he is responsible for a 40-strong team at the Thornton Road dealership. He said: ‘I’m very pleased to be joining Bristol Street Motors Renault and Dacia Bradford.’

New job for Darren with Renault and Dacia

DUNDEE: Peugeot has appointed Struan Motors to operate its new dealership in Dundee. Struans, a used car dealer which prides itself on being a family company with family values, has more than 40 years’ experience in the industry and already operates a Peugeot site in Perth. The Dundee showroom has undergone a major redevelopment to accommodate the Peugeot brand and showcases the latest retail concept interior being rolled out across the network. It is the French carmaker’s second new site in Scotland after the opening of a new facility in Aberdeen.

Family values at heart of new dealership

News from around the UK DASHBOARD.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 31

MINSTER LOVELL: Prime Minister David Cameron ignored more expensive offerings while buying a car for his wife Samantha from an Oxfordshire dealership – opting for a £1,495 Nissan Micra. Iain Harris, the owner of Witney Used Car Centre in Minster Lovell, was asked by the Camerons’ security team to stay open half an hour later on Friday night so that the premier could check over the used car. At first, Harris thought the phone call was a joke from his friends, telling The Guardian: ‘I thought, well I’ll just stay here in case, because the security guard said they’d arrive at 17:32 and I thought, well, that’s a bit precise.

Next thing I know, Mr Cameron and his security guards turned up, and I thought, this is actually happening.’

Dave drops in to snap up a Nissan Micra

BUSHEY: Ben Maguire has joined the CarCliq team as the company’s new managing director. With 15 years’ experience in the motor trade including AutoTrader and more recently CAP Automotive, Ben is a highly experienced and well respected member of the industry. Antony Lewis, founder of CarCliq, a website which offers buyers deals on new and used cars from local approved car dealers, said: ‘Ben’s extensive knowledge of both the automotive sector and the digital media landscape is undisputed.’

Celebs and VIPs attend Levante unveiling LONDON: Maserati GB officially unveiled the Levante SUV to a star-studded crowd at the renowned Royal Horticultural Halls in London. The event was hosted by TV and radio presenter Lisa Snowdon alongside Giulio Pastore, Maserati Europe’s general manager, and was attended by a host of celebrities and VIPs, including Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Alex James, Olivia Grant and Leigh-Anne Pinnock. The Levante is the brand’s first luxury SUV, encompassing the design, performance and exclusivity central to all Maserati vehicles.

Hard-working trio have efforts recognised EXETER: Employees at a Mitsubishi dealership in Exeter have received awards for their outstanding work. Accountant and company secretary Diane Slater was named partner of the year at Livery Dole Mitsubishi, while Annette Trevor, who works in accounts, was runner-up. In addition, sales co-ordinator Becky Wall was given an award for partner of the quarter. The dealership is run as a partnership, like the John Lewis chain, with each staff member getting a share of the profits.

MANSFIELD: Family-owned dealer group Ron Brooks has officially opened the doors to its new state-ofthe-art Suzuki showroom in Nottinghamshire. Based on Oak Tree Lane in Mansfield, the opening of the standalone eight-car dealership follows a sevenmonth construction project. The contemporary premises offers a comfortable environment for customers. Facilities include a hospitality area with complementary refreshments and wifi, as well as dedicated parts and servicing receptions.

ILKESTON: Bristol Street Motors in Ilkeston has announced its support for a talented gymnast who hopes to take part in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The Nissan dealership has joined forces with Sam Oldham, right, who was part of the bronze medal-winning British men’s team at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The support from the Derby Road dealership comes at an important time for the 23-year-old, as he aims to take part in the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Ben welcomed as new CarCliq MD

State-of-the-art Suzuki surroundings

Support for Sam who’s aiming for Rio

DASHBOARD.

It’s the missing piece of the Well, he kept that quiet! Just two days after appearing on the Live Stage at CDX, the announcement came that John O’Hanlon’s Ridgeway Garages business had been sold to Marshall Motor Holdings. SOPHIE WILLIAMSON-STOTHERT reports

I

t’s the biggest deal the motor trade has seen in 10 years and it got the entire industry talking. On May 26, Marshall Motor Holdings plc, one of the UK’s leading automotive retail and leasing groups, announced it had bought Ridgeway Garages in a £106.9m deal.

The acquisition saw Marshall move from being the 10th to the seventh largest motor dealer group in the UK and was hailed by company boss Daksh Gupta as being ‘truly transformational’ for his company.

Ridgeway, the multi-franchise dealer group, which operates across swathes of southern England, represents 12 brands across 30 franchised dealerships. Its manufacturer partners include Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mini and Skoda.

The deal makes perfect sense for Marshall.

There is a strong OEM overlap creating further scale with existing brand partners, all of

Daksh Gupta hailed the deal as ‘transformational’ for Marshall 32 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

whom are said to have been supportive of the acquisition. It also adds four Mercedes-Benz commercials operations; and it extends Marshall’s geographic footprint from 19 to 25 counties in England, cleverly filling in a gap in the operation in the south of the country.

Operationally, Ridgeway is a group Daksh Gupta knows well, and the acquisition provides great opportunities for future growth.

The deal will benefit Marshall in many ways, with company bosses confident that it will prove to be significantly earnings-enhancing.

It also beefs up Marshall’s freehold property portfolio, given the fact that Ridgeway’s 13 freehold properties comprised £53.9m of land and buildings as at December 31, 2015.

Describing the deal as ‘truly transformational’ for his company, Gupta added: ‘This is a significant strategic and value-enhancing acquisition for Marshall.

‘The deal brings two well-established and

successful businesses together and it will inevitably make us stronger. In my opinion, Ridgeway is the best privately-owned dealer group in the UK, operating in key areas of the network Marshall was not previously in.

‘The deal, which is in line with our strategy to grow scale with existing brand partners, marks the biggest acquisition of the decade. It means we’re now operating in 25 counties across the country and our stock levels are much bigger – offering more choice for buyers. And more sales are good news for everyone!

‘Ridgeway has a really great geographical footprint, which further builds on our acquisition of SG Smith last year by cementing our presence into the affluent southern home counties of England, including West Sussex, Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

‘Quite frankly, if we can’t sell Audis, BMWs and MercedesBenz cars in the home counties, we may as well give up and go home!’

jigsaw for Marshall IT’S BEEN A BLAST, I’VE LOVED EVERY MINUTE

MANAGEMENT CHANGES ANNOUNCED TO SHARE BEST PRACTICE ACROSS THE ENLARGED GROUP A COUPLE of weeks after news of the deal broke, Marshall announced changes in senior management responsibilities.

Jon Head, formerly Ridgeway’s operations director, will take up the newly-created role of commercial director for the enlarged Marshall group. The role will include responsibility for aftersales development, F&I, CRM, marketing and purchasing.

Meanwhile, Jamie Crowther, Marshall’s operations director, will assume operational responsibility for the enlarged group with the Marshall and Ridgeway operational directors reporting directly to him.

Finally, Dan Taylor, Ridgeway’s finance director, will continue in his current role,

Gupta also explained that the latest acquisition would open up a number of opportunities for people to join the rapidly expanding Marshall Group.

‘As well as combining our workforce to create a 1,400-strong team, the acquisition is creating a number of new jobs, further helping us to support the economy and attract a new generation of motor trade professionals. We’ll be retaining our existing loyal staff and carrying out a small reshuffle of the management team.

‘We have funded this acquisition from our existing balance sheet capabilities. The board expects the acquisition of Ridgeway to deliver significant earnings enhancement and returns materially greater than our weighted average cost of capital.

‘Ridgeway is a great branch with a great market. [Chairman] David Newman and his team have built an excellent business with fantastic senior management, great staff, strong performance and a similar culture to ours. It’s also a business I’ve been associated

reporting to Mark Raban, Marshall’s CFO, and will assist Daksh Gupta with the integration of the Ridgeway businesses.

Gupta said: ‘We are very fortunate to have two exceptional operations directors in Jon Head in Ridgeway and Jamie Crowther in Marshall. Currently, they both have day-to-day responsibility for operational and commercial aspects of their respective businesses. In light of the scale of the enlarged group, we have assessed the best way to lead the business to set ourselves up for continued success.

‘We believe it is important we bring the two teams together; one of the attractions of doing so is the opportunity to share best practice across the enlarged group.’

A Marshall dealership in Peterborough with since 2007 – I was previously group MD for Ridgeway, which means I know the fantastic management team and great people who work there – it’s the perfect strategic fit.

‘I very much look forward to welcoming our new Ridgeway colleagues to the group and working closely with them again into the future. Finally, I wish to thank all of the OEMs who Ridgeway represent for their support of the acquisition.

‘That was something I was really pleased with – all of them gave their support to this transaction – that was brilliant. One manufacturer even described it as a blue riband acquisition.

‘And this deal makes sense because it connects our east and south-west operations together.

‘It’s a great acquisition and we’re very, very pleased. It’s taken seven months to get it across the line – that’s because of the scale of it.’ [CD]

RIDGEWAY boss John O’Hanlon issued a personal statement following the announcement that his company had been bought by Marshall Motor Holdings.

He wrote a personal post on LinkedIn to say ‘a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved with Ridgeway over the last 18 years – our teams, our suppliers, our brand partners and our customers’.

He added: ‘I am immensely proud to have worked with [chairman] David Newman, and our directors, to build a group from the two sites in 1997 to a £750m multi-brand operation. I have made many contacts over the years through Ridgeway that I now consider to be close personal friends.

‘We had a little saying that Ridgeway wasn’t a company... it was a cause... and that is truly how I felt about it. Our own brand (the Uffington white horse) became affectionately known as “Dobbin”, and I was proud to have him on my lapel.

‘We built a business based John O’Hanlon... on honesty, ‘immensely proud’ transparency and trust.

‘We consistently focused on getting better... and the #gtg (good to great) reminded us that there was always an opportunity to improve. The creation of the Ridgeway Academy gave us a real competitive edge in recruitment, retention and driving real change into the business.

‘I wish Daksh, and the team at Marshalls, every success for the future with Ridgeway.

‘On a personal level, I am going to take a little time off and recharge the batteries before deciding on what the future holds. ’In summary, it’s been a blast...it’s been emotional... and I’ve loved every minute of it! Thank you all!’

“

‘If we can’t sell Audis, BMWs and Mercedes-Benz cars in the home counties, we may as well give up and go home!’

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 33

DASHBOARD.

BMW dealers ‘missing out’ thanks to ban on Carwow Ruling ‘is in breach of numerous laws and anti-competitive too’

C

arwow has reported BMW to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for ‘anti-competitive’ controls that prevent franchise holders from using the online car-selling service.

BMW is one of the few leading brands that is not represented on the award-winning website and, according to Carwow’s chief executive James Hind ‘dealers have been campaigning against BMW to use the service, but the brand just isn’t playing ball’.

He told Car Dealer Magazine: ‘Multiple dealers want to use the Carwow service but they just aren’t allowed.

‘Carwow has had dozens of BMW dealerships approach it looking for a route to market; many of which are successfully using Carwow for profitable incremental sales in other brands they represent.

‘There are thousands of people a month who use Carwow to compare reviews and prices of

by SOPHIE WILLIAMSON- STOTHERT @1Sophie_W BMWs against other brands before deciding which car and, ultimately, which dealer to buy from. With BMW UK blocking the use of the Carwow platform from its network, BMW dealers are missing out on the opportunity to put their details in front of ready-to-buy consumers.

‘This also has a negative effect on profitability of the BMW network as their local customer is now servicing for the next few years in a competitor brand’s garage.’

He added: ‘The CMA has found that this is in breach of numerous laws and an anti-competitive offence. Carwow believes that any franchise dealer has the right to choose where they would like to market themselves and are fighting this case on behalf of the BMW dealers that are eager to use the platform, but fear losing their franchise by disobeying BMW UK’s wishes.’

Carwow chief executive James Hind Launched by Hind, above right, and cofounders Alexandra Margolis and David Santoro in 2010, Carwow.co.uk enables customers to list the details of the vehicle they are searching for online, which are then passed to the dealers.

A spokesperson at BMW told Car Dealer: ‘We are aware of the legal situation.

‘We feel that Carwow does not have any substance in European law in making their claim so there is a discussion between the two legal departments.’

www.desperateseller.co.uk | www.facebook.com/desperateseller.co.uk | twitter.com/despseller

34 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

RESULTS

Profits up at Auto Trader CLASSIFIED cars website Auto Trader saw profits accelerate last year as it continued to dominate the sector.

The firm said full-year operating profit revved up by 19 per cent to £171.3m as increased advertising revenue boosted sales.

Auto Trader, which floated on the London Stock Exchange last year, said turnover was up from £255.9m to £281.6m.

Chief executive Trevor Mather said: ‘We are delighted with the progress that the group has made in its first full year as a public company.

‘The new financial year has started well, and the board is confident of delivering continuous improvement in both our consumer and retailer solutions.’ Debt, which under previous owner Apax dragged on the firm, was down £135.3m to £392.6m.

Hendy’s new Lifestyle, as a bigger firm after acquisition Companies share ‘similar philosophy’ and focus on customer service

S

outh coast-based Hendy Group has bought the Lifestyle Dealer Group in a deal putting it in the top 20 of the UK’s automotive retailers.

Hendy Group now operates 12 motor franchises at 25 locations in Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Devon with annual turnover set to reach £600m.

It now employs around 1,000 staff and is set to sell in excess of 40,000 cars, vans and trucks each year from its dealerships and two car stores.

Hendy Group managing director Paul Hendy, pictured, said he was delighted to add the successful Lifestyle Dealer Group to its existing business and said the company now had a great platform for growth.

‘We are delighted that the Lifestyle team is joining the Hendy Group as it

has a similar philosophy with a strong commitment to customer care and service.

‘This acquisition extends our territory into the south-east and adds a number of new franchises to our existing portfolio of Ford, MG, Iveco, Honda, Mazda and Kia,’ he said.

Lifestyle also has Ford, Mazda and

Kia dealerships together with Renault, Dacia, Seat, Isuzu, Subaru and Suzuki outlets. Marc Matthew, Lifestyle chairman, said the Hendy Group provided an exciting future for the south-east-based company, which was formed in 2001.

‘We have built up a strong, profitable and successful business in Kent, Sussex and Surrey and believe this growth will continue with Hendy Group,’ he said.

All new dealerships will continue to operate under the Lifestyle name for the immediate future as the business is integrated into the Hendy Group.

‘It’s very much business as usual at the moment,’ said Hendy. ‘We’re really excited to be adding the new dealerships to our existing business and look forward to the future.’

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 35

DASHBOARD.

Around the world Dealer news from somewhere other than here

MONTE CARLO

BUGATTI has opened a new luxury showroom in Monte Carlo. Located on the ground floor of the Fairmont Hotel at the heart of Monaco, it is the third Bugatti dealership in the world to house a car showroom and lifestyle boutique under one roof. Stefan Brungs, a member of the board of management of Bugatti Automobiles, said: ‘Monaco is inseparably linked with the brand history of Bugatti.’

AMERICA

SALES of SUVs have been rising consistently across the US in the past few years – so a research company decided to investigate.

The firm, MaritzCX, discovered that 34 per cent of the sales increase in the small SUV segment came from women. The same research company found that 40 per cent of female buyers monitored in the study were single at the time of purchase.

SOUTH AFRICA

SOUTH Africa’s new vehicle market continued to decline in May, with total industry sales of 42,907 new vehicles, down 10.3 per cent from 2015 figures, according to the BusinessTech website. The weaker rand has resulted in continued new car price inflation and consumers have been moving to the used car market in increasing numbers.

CHINA

IN A major raid on a factory, Chinese police seized 33,000 counterfeit car safety parts that were destined to be sold in Australia.

According to a report on the News Corp Australia website, the authorities identified the manufacturer following a court case against distributors of dodgy car parts in Sydney and Melbourne. Last year, Toyota took action against independent distributors who were selling counterfeit airbag spiral cables (which trigger the airbag during a crash) and brake pads containing asbestos, among other bogus car parts.

NEW ZEALAND

VOLKSWAGEN Group dealership Euro City is moving to a new multi-million-pound home in Napier, a coastal city on New Zealand’s north island. Construction work recently started on the scheme, which is part of a large-scale commercial development on a former university site. ‘Our priority is to provide more service and choice,’ said dealership boss Terry Elmsly.

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: INTRO

We’ll never stop making it JAMES BAGGOTT, the founder of Car Dealer and now CEO of the magazine’s parent company, Baize Group, kicks off 32 pages of CDX coverage with an overview of the event

H

ow did I end up doing this?

I’m stood at the entrance to CDX16, the day before the big event kicks off in earnest, with a piece of vinyl in one hand and the look of absolute uselessness plastered across my what-has-just-been-made-tofeel-incredibly-inferior face. Event supremo Andy Entwistle, erstwhile MD of the Car Dealer parish, is looking at me like I’m a naughty toddler and is instantly regretting his decision to ask me to do anything remotely manual. You see manual labour and I mix like diesel in a petrol engine and Andy has very quickly remembered he might as well have asked me to render the Silverstone Wing roof with cheese.

Whipping the vinyl CDX sticker out of my hand, he tells me to go and ‘do something useful’ instead – ‘something you’re good at, like tweeting’. Ouch. Nothing like being damned with faint praise, is there? Instead, I take a wander around the huge Silverstone Wing’s three halls that nearly 100 exhibitors are busily filling up with stands that would rival some motor shows.

The teams the companies have employed to build their showcase platforms are vast. Many real men are wielding power tools, there are portable radios blaring out Ken Bruce’s dulcet tones and I’m generally getting in the way. The entire Car Dealer team has descended on Silverstone to help with the set-up. I’m left to ‘oversee’ things.

It’s taken many months of planning to get to this stage. Some 3,000 delegates have signed up to attend the packed day and will each be handed one of the carefully-stuffed plastic goodie

38 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

bags I helped unload off a van. I stroll down to hall three where the team are setting up the Car Dealer Live Stage.

This is our centrepiece for the day where Trade Plates TV host Rebecca Chaplin and I will be chatting to some of the great and the good of the automotive world. We place some boy band style stools out on the platform while the Blackball Media video team tweak camera angles.

Each session is due to be broadcast throughout the halls on countless flat-screen TVs so there’s a lot of prep to be done. I practise my key change standing-up-off-the-stool moves before I’m politely told to ‘go and do some tweeting’

by Nigel, our head of video. You see a theme running here?

I watch as huge CDX16 banners are draped over the mezzanine balconies and spy on Auto Trader and Carwow who are busy preparing their two huge stands and respective mezzanine ‘entertainment zones’. Last year we used these areas for workshops, this year we’ve offered them to those firms who want to make a really

Lively conversation the night before CDX16

big impression. However, it’s the GForces stand, slap bang in the middle of hall two, that I can’t take my eyes off. A team of 30 – yes, 30 – stage builders are whistling their way through a build that would put some car manufacturers to shame. It looks like a plane’s been cut in half and positioned in the middle of CDX. Half built it looks incredible, I can‘t wait to see what it looks like when dealers are swarming all over it.

Build in full swing, I retreat to the hotel where we’re hosting a Used Car Debate with some influential dealers. The idea is that we chat about the issues facing used car dealers and it’s a lively session. The Blackball video team are in situ capturing the action for Trade Plates and you can read all about what the dealers had to say on p68.

There’s only time for a quick costume change before the pre-event barbecue, hosted by new online classified site Auto Volo.

Owner Stefan Voloseniuc is there with his team and it’s not long before the beers are flowing and the meat is searing on the coals. I take the opportunity for a bit of pre-CDX networking and chat to some of the UK’s top dealers. Top of the agenda are advertising prices, used car sales and Brexit – all of which form some interesting questions in my mind for the Live Stage panels.

I slope off early, just before the beer turns to shorts. CDX is set to be a long day and the last things I want are (bigger) bags under my eyes – and a bleary hung-over head.

It’s bright and especially early when I climb into the passenger seat of our long-term Mondeo next to stressed-out tech chief Jon Reay and head to the venue. Sunglasses don’t really disguise the

the best it can be

‘It’s the GForces stand, slap bang in the middle of hall two, that I can’t take my eyes off...’ fact I got little sleep. Liberally applied coffee and a healthy dose of adrenaline soon dispatch the fog, though, and I take 15 minutes to walk the halls and soak up the incredible stands before the masses arrive. It’s quiet, everything’s neat and beautifully laid out. The calm before the storm.

I can’t help but stop and think for a minute: We did this. Little old Car Dealer Mag and a passionate team from Gosport have pulled together the biggest names in the car industry for what is set to be an action-packed day for dealers – and all for free. We. Did. This.

Andy holds court for a team briefing, but I’m paying little attention.

I’m still struggling to take it all in. Exhibitors this year have gone to town – there’s a huge Manheim rig to greet visitors as they walk into hall one, Auto Trader dominates the skyline and countless other stands are packed in around the room. And this is just one hall of three.

In what feels like minutes, we’re up and running and the Live Stage sessions fly by.

Floods of delegates roll in and the 1,000-space car park is soon full. Buses bring yet more in through the doors.

Google’s Scott Sinclair packs the hall out, while there’s standing room only when we quiz the bigname car manufacturer bosses and dealer chiefs.

All our keynote speakers deliver their information to an audience that’s lapping it up.

Meanwhile hundreds of others are enjoying workshops from leading businesses, the Top 140 Dealers on Twitter are being revealed by Twitter themselves and a lively Women In The Motor Industry session packs out hall four.

The day’s a blur – mostly fuelled by Red Bull and fear – but I do get the chance to catch up with countless contacts. I get nothing but positive feedback from those who corner me for a chat, most of whom plead for a two-day CDX17.

That’s one to mull over, but as the crowds ease and the packing begins I can’t help but plan how to make next year’s event even bigger and even better.

What a day! And CDX17 will be bigger still One thing is clear – CDX is here to stay. We make no bones about the fact we want to create the European version of the brilliant NADA conference and we’re already well on the way.

CDX will become the networking event for dealers and suppliers of the year and I promise you one thing: We’ll never relent in our quest to make it the very best it can be.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 39

DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE

Q&A: Manufacturer bosses Once again, CDX gave us the perfect opportunity to gather together some of the most important men in the motoring industry. Three of our panel members had taken part at CDX15: Andy Barratt of Ford, Tony Whitehorn of Hyundai and Lance Bradley of Mitsubishi. They were joined this year

by Paul Williams of SsangYong and David Baddeley of Volvo.

How far can the new car market grow?

Andy Barratt: We were very bullish with our prediction for this year and we forecast the car market to be about 2.8million. We also see very good strength in the commercial vehicle market – 450,000 – so a 3.2 or 3.3million market in total.

Tony Whitehorn: I think that what is definitely happening is there aren’t more people coming into the market but people are changing much earlier. I do think eventually the car market could hit 2.8 or 2.9 million.

Lance Bradley: I broadly agree with what Andy and Tony are saying. There’s underlying confidence in the economy and that’s been reflected in people buying new cars. There is uncertainty about Brexit which will continue until June 23, but assuming it goes the way a lot of people think it will, that should restore some ANDY TONY LANCE BARRATT WHITEHORN BRADLEY consumer confidence and we’ll see growth.

Chairman and President Managing director, Paul Williams: The market is very strong, managing director, and CEO, Mitsubishi but we need to be wary of how many PCPs Ford of Hyundai Motors are brought back into the used car market. I Britain Motor UK in the UK think the UK market over the last few years in particular has been driven by the weak market on mainland Europe, with manufacturers taking impact. If you manufacture in Europe with a momentum, like the B-SUV has. I think this will the opportunity to use the UK car industry very strong pound versus Euro, the UK becomes drive the market, along with economy demand. as a sponge for demand. It’s testimony to the a honey pot – a place to bring cars to where the LB: My teenage daughter wouldn’t dream of ingenuity and skill of the UK car industry that we margins improve. Consumer confidence is at a buying something outright and not just because can continue to absorb ever-increasing volumes.

15-year high and that helps, as does interest rate she gets me to do it ! She and her friends buy David Baddeley: I think we are definitely seeing stability. We can certainly see a three-million things monthly and when they get fed up with the changing dynamic of how people market in the next year. How much something, they change it. I don’t think they’re are buying cars, the increasing choice further than that? I’m not sure it’s going to expect to own their cars, they may not of rental over ownership and got much more steam above even expect to have access to them at all times. that’s changing the dynamic three million.

PW: In terms of the overall market I’m a little and therefore the frequency TW: I think one thing that bit more cautious. I think we all have to be very of purchase. We still see some will change things is how we mindful of the balance of new and used cars over strength in the marketplace. as manufacturers try to look the next couple of years in particular as people There are risks but overall we’re for new segments. In the SUV have been changing cars quicker. confident that there’s some INDEPENDENTS FRANCHISED market, if you look backMANUFACTURER to ten DB: I think Paul’s hit on a key point there which SESSION SESSION SESSION strength to come. years ago, there weren’t really that is used cars. The key to this is our ability to How long can this growth go on in the new car market?

AB: Exchange rate has a massive 40 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

In association with

many SUVs around. Now it’s one In association with of the largest segments in the car market. I can see things like the A-SUV starting to gain a bit of

expand our ability and desire to recycle those In association with used cars. If we can keep doing that then the opportunities within the new car market are, I think, quite great.

PAUL WILLIAMS

Chief executive officer, SsangYong Motor UK

DAVID BADDELEY

Customer service director, Volvo Car UK

Are new car sales crippling used car sales?

AB: I don’t think they’re crippling them, I think the dynamic is changing. Used cars are much younger than they used to be and that creates downward pricing pressure. Our average fleet age is still eight or nine years, there’s still quite a lot of movement that comes in. We have around 4.5m Ford vehicles on the road in the UK, there’s probably a lot of renewal we can do in that parc.

TW: We’re seeing now that most households have got two or three cars. You didn’t see that 15 years ago. Because the new car situation is increasing, we’re seeing a knock-on effect on used cars. As the new car market increases, so will used. There has to be a finite level, of course there does, but it’s incredible how the new car market and used have both grown.

LB: There are a couple of pressures of owning more cars per household, but also when was the last time you saw a rusty car? Ten or 15 years ago,

maybe? It used to be after ten years a car would start going rusty and that would kill it, now it’s the technology when it reaches a certain point that it’s just too expensive to repair. It means there’s a clearer end of life.

PW: It’s important we keep the balance between new and used cars. Probably, with the exception of the United States, the UK car market is one of the most adaptive in the world and we’ll keep finding new and innovative ways to keep the balance between new and used.

DB: The changing features and segments within vehicles will keep opening up both new and used opportunities. Things like autonomous driving will create technology that people want.

Is Brexit affecting car sales in your brand and what’s your hope for the vote on June 23?

AB: We’ve been very clear at Ford that we want a stable economic environment. As a global company we’re constantly fighting for our share of global capital. To us, to cut ties with our biggest trading partner is the wrong decision.

TW: If we vote out, I can’t tell you what that will look like in ten years but over the next two years we will have a less stable economy and all of us want stability.

LB: Uncertainty is the thing that kills a business.

The fact is, we’ll never actually know if it was the right decision or not, so you have to look at what you know and the only thing you do know is that it will create at least two years of uncertainty and that is always bad for industry.

PW: I agree with Lance that we’ll never really know what was the right or the wrong answer, but for sure, as business people, we can’t deal with the uncertainty.

DB: Stability is the key criterion for business development and whatever you believe, Brexit would result in instability for a period of time.

If you were to tell your dealers to invest in one thing for the future, what would that be?

AB: The industry is massively underinvested in aftersales currently. All vehicle parcs are growing but we haven’t really invested in additional service capacity. As franchised dealers it’s an absolute cornerstone of your profitability, where your biggest margins are and it’s part of creating that loyalty cycle with your customers.

TW: I think that’s absolutely right, that’s where the profitability is. As franchise dealers we need to retain our customers, and where you retain them is in your aftersales department.

LB: I think that our industry is finding it increasingly hard to find and retain the right people and that’s something I think we should spend a lot more time on. If you look at what so-called millennials want as a job, it’s different from what we wanted.

PW: Lance, you’re absolutely right, we’ve got to look for talent in our industry. We’ve got a great industry, which is very exciting, but I think we can bring even better people in.

DB: The one thing that will strangle the growth and opportunities in our industry is not enough people.

What challenges do you think the industry is facing at the moment?

AB: If we look back, people wanted to work their way through the retailer network and that’s not happening in the same way any more. But I think the ultimate challenge is long-term financial stability for both manufacturers and retailers.

There will be another downturn and are we all match-fit for that day? I suspect we’re not.

TW: I think the biggest challenge for the dealer network is consolidation, which is happening mainly because of financial pressures.

LB: As we move towards more consumers buying cars as a commodity – and maybe they’re paying a rental for them or the cars are autonomous – how do you differentiate between them? If you’re not really driving them, what’s the experience that you get? One of the things that will differentiate is the level of customer service and how frictionless it is.

PW: As an industry, the biggest challenge we have is restoring consumer confidence with everything that’s come from emissions issues of late. Within the industry itself I think it’s important we restore confidence between manufacturer and dealer networks as well.

DB: I think it’s us as leaders and our ability to keep up, adapt and develop. We’re at a very exciting and changeable point in our industry and it’s our responsibility to work with our teams through this.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 41

DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE

Q&A: Franchise dealers Four big-hitters from the sector took to the stage to answer questions: JCT600 chief executive John Tordoff, Lookers Motor Division managing director Nigel McMinn, Perrys Motor Sales chairman Ken Savage and Ridgeway Group chief executive John O’Hanlon. Their session covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from the impact on sales of the forthcoming EU referendum to the biggest struggles they were facing.

How big do you think the new car market can grow?

Nigel McMinn: I always thought I was the eternal optimist on this because I kept saying a lot of the dynamics are in place to allow the market to grow past three million and everyone thought I was crazy, but I heard a prediction today of four million! I think there are more people who think it’ll get closer to three and certainly in the next five years there’s a good chance that it might get past three.

John Tordoff: I’m not so sure, but I am a pessimist. I can’t see where three million cars are going to go, if I’m honest. You have to question the infrastructure of the UK and the size of the country, especially when there’s no scrappage.

Ken Savage: I think the market could be more than it is at the moment, but probably not that much more, because you look at the cars and they’re better and lasting longer. The alternative argument is that more people are driving.

John O’Hanlon: I think you can never say never. The truth is that people love cars, we’re controlling more of the sale on finance, so I can see how it would happen. I don’t think it’ll happen this year or next year unless something else is happening in the market.

What do you think the car industry needs to do to attract more people to work in it?

JT: Attracting new talent is one of the issues the industry is facing right now. Are we doing enough? At a local level, yes. At a national level as an industry and a dealer body, no. I think by and large people associate it with buying and selling cars, fixing them, but there are so many different facets to our businesses.

NM: I do think as an industry we are getting better as the years go by. It was unheard of for us to have sales apprenticeships even several years ago. Something like 70 per cent of our intake to sales now are new to the industry and about half of those are women. That’s a lot different to what it was five years ago.

KS: Working hours is a huge issue. I think 42 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

JOHN TORDOFF

Chief executive of JCT600

NIGEL McMINN

Managing director of the motor division at Lookers

we need to start thinking about how many is the ever-increasing cost base of the business. hours we want our salespeople to work, and We’re recruiting more people, bigger dealerships, the environment in which we’re asking our fancier dealerships, more training and I think technicians to work. that’s a real challenge for us all, particularly if the JO: I think there are two sides to it. The first side market cools. Someone told me the other day is recruitment and we’ve been trying to work ‘You’re only seven years away from your next outside the box. We’ve been having recession.’ We haven’t had one for some ‘talent wanted’ evenings and going time, but as sure as eggs is eggs we about the recruitment slightly will, and when we do, the cost differently. It is white, it’s male base of every dealer in here is dominated and it doesn’t reflect going to be higher than last time. the customers that we sell to.

NM: I totally agree with John.

The other side is retention, There’s margin pressure coming and part of that is through into the new car market and this INDEPENDENTS MANUFACTURER development. year is the first time we’ve seen it SESSION SESSION as obviously as it is. The problem What’s the biggest struggle you’re is that you still need the resource In association with In association with facing at the moment? to fuel the volume. One of the JT: It’s the margin pressure, but I other big issues, which is linked think a bigger issue at the moment to that, is technology. People and

KEN SAVAGE

Chairman of Perrys Motor Sales

JOHN O’HANLON

Chief executive of the Ridgeway Group

technology are our only two differentiators these days, and it takes a lot of investment and a lot of competency both in-house and from suppliers.

KS: We struggle to have enough people to run our business effectively. We struggle to get enough technicians in the workshops to meet demand, we struggle to get enough salespeople in. But on top of the number of people is the quality.

JO: The guarantees around where customers shop for new cars, that’s up for grabs. That’s what worries me and that’s the part I keep trying to understand. The impact of a Carwow, the impact of a What Car? and how it will affect what we do.

How has the emissions scandal affected your business and are we out of the woods?

JT: Almost 50 per cent of our group is some kind of VW product, so Q4 last year was a particularly tough time. The number of customers coming in to have their cars fixed is quite interesting now

that VW and other brands have got the fixes. Six months on, they’re not that bothered.

JO: I think very similar. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty. I think we were very well prepared at the time and we had staff to meet customers in every dealership. But with Audi we had about a week’s worth of pain and then it moved on. I think it could have been a lot worse.

NM: I think it’s been a storm in a teacup. It’ll be expensive for VW but it’ll blow over. We have a saying which is ‘Customers are more interested in what comes out of their bank account than what comes out of their tailpipe’. Our Q1 has been extremely good with Volkswagen this year.

KS: I watched it as an observer as we don’t have Volkswagen. We have Seat but I don’t think the Seat customers viewed it as part of the problem.

Are you feeling a lull as the EU vote approaches?

JT: I think there’s been a general cooling-off of

the market, particularly in the new car market in April and May. Whether that’s because of the referendum is hard to tell. Whether we pulled more business into Q1 I’m not sure.

NM: We haven’t noticed any discernible drop-off in new or used but we are expecting it as we get closer to the referendum. We saw it a bit with the Scottish referendum, just closer to the date itself.

KS: After a record Q1 we’ve seen a slowdown in April and May is a bit slower. Used cars are carrying on fairly strong. We found the Scottish referendum disrupted our sales pattern and it looks like Brexit will.

JO: Just looking at the stats, our inquiries are up nine per cent but our conversion has dropped off a little. So we’ve not sold any more cars yearon-year. It’s the first month this year where we haven’t been pushing forward quite hard. I think it is having an impact on some of the confidence.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 43

DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE

Q&A: Independent dealers The independent dealers taking to the stage came in the form of Jonathan Dunkley, Jamie Caple and Umesh Samani. Social media is a hot topic and all three were quick to chat about its uses and benefits. And with 360-degree cameras and virtual test drives on the cards, this was one of the most forward-looking dealer chats we’ve seen at CDX. But how can things improve back at the dealership? Find out below.

higher mileage. Unique, funky, interesting cars – a How are you finding the market at the moment? little like us!

Jonathan Dunkley: The year started reasonably well for us. We were 23 per cent up year-on-year.

Jamie, on that point, you guys have made a Consumer confidence appears high still. The huge success out of social media. How have you past four to six weeks have been a bit tougher, managed to do that? with the weather changing and more cars JC: Social has worked well for us. We don’t want entering the market. I think a lot of people are to be the company that is pigeonholed as ‘the one realigning their pricing strategies. Overall, we’re that does social well’ but it has helped us. I think finding it buoyant, and I think it’s going to be Facebook especially is changing. interesting to see the impact of the Brexit debate.

We always dug our heels in and thought that Pretty good, though. we’d never use it as a selling tool – we’d use it as Umesh Samani: For me, it’s been a very good start a tool to show people who we are and build trust to the year. I’ve had a very busy four months. This in us. Now I think we need to start aggressively month’s been a little quieter but overall a very marketing individual cars on social media. good start to the year.

It’s working for a lot of the people Jamie Caple: Yes, we’re busy. I think we’re speaking to. While we were we’re going to take a slightly very quick to embrace social, different view this year and we’ve been less quick to embrace maybe keep the units the same selling – actual physical selling and make the most of every and listing cars on social. I think opportunity we have. It’s busy it’s a big opportunity for us to out there. I don’t buy into people look at and it’s something we’ll be who say it’s not. We had a slowish JAMIE INDEPENDENTS MANUFACTURER FRANCHISED doing throughout the year. SESSION start to the month, but it’s picking SESSION SESSION CAPLE right up again.

Creative director In association with In association with and co-founder In association with Umesh, you’ve always had a of Caralot, strong social media presence. The How many cars are you selling?

Derby other day you tried 360-degree What would you do in a month? cameras. How did you find that?

JD: On an average month we’re US: The 360 video is fantastic and I think it’s the around the 2,000 mark. Last year, we did 25,200.

This is because most people have a Facebook way forward. A virtual test drive is going to be This year we’re looking for around 24,000 cars. account. We’ve got a colossal amount of reviews the way to go. The customer is able to sit with me on there – nearly 1,000 – and it gives people driving the car – and I think they’ve got no reason And what sort of cars are they? confidence in you even though they’ve never not to buy the car once they’ve seen the video.

JD: They’re a mixture of ex-fleet vehicles, from met you. It’s certainly opened up other avenues three to four years old, but we also do some rental cars as well. We sell a wide variety and a wide mix of cars, though, ranging from BMWs – which are our second biggest seller – right through to the Peugeot or Citroen-type product.

US: Totally different to these guys. I’m just a oneman band. I carry about 30 cars in stock, 150 a year probably and they’re all hand-picked. We do prestige mainly, so Audi, Volkswagen and BMW. JC: We carry about 150 or 160 cars in stock and we sell around 120 a month. The plan is to maintain that level throughout the year. We want to make more money out of each one we sell.

Our cars are anything from three to 10 years old and range from prestige cars to those with slightly 44 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Jonathan, is social media just as important for your business? Or does it play less of a part?

JD: No, social media is definitely an important channel for us. It’s a brand-building channel, and it can be used to feed any customer feedback to us, too. It is a key channel, but in terms of core channels it’s really about Google and Auto Trader.

Have you sold any cars because of social media?

JC: We’ve sold cars. We sell a lot to people who aren’t geographically close to the business. So when someone who has never heard of your business is asking about you and whether they can trust you, you can refer them to Facebook.

for us. We’ve got an ongoing project at the minute that has come from our work on social media, so it’s opened up a world of opportunity for us as a business.

How many likes have you got on Facebook?

JC: We’ve got nearly 17,000.

And how did you manage to build such a large following?

JC: In the early days it was much easier, we didn’t push as hard back then. Facebook unfortunately now is about payment. They have to make money, so to increase likes, it’s harder now than before. We try to differentiate ourselves from

UMESH SAMANI

Owner of Specialist Cars, Stoke-on-Trent

JONATHAN DUNKLEY

Chief executive of CarShop, England and Wales

the rest of the trade but unfortunately, as a lot of people know, we haven’t got a great reputation as an industry – still. I think social and Facebook has helped debunk the myth around what car dealers are like. Now, to get the likes we’re going to have to start shelling out a lot more money.

can see what’s going on. I think all the dealers have realised that they had to change and get rid of some of the old-fashioned ways because everybody is able to review them. Dealers have to make sure that everything is clean-cut, and that encourages sales.

That point about the impression people have of used car dealers is an important one. Do you think that’s changed?

JD: I think it’s changing all the time. The industry is changing, and I think the perception by the consumer is changing as well. We’ve got a really clear focus on customer experience, and we review customer feedback on a weekly basis at a senior level to make the appropriate changes. I see every single complaint that comes in.

US: Overall, I think the industry has cleaned its act up – which is something it had to do.

Everything is transparent now and everyone

What do you think is the secret to being a successful used car dealer?

JD: I think it starts with the right stock. First, pricing it correctly, and then marketing it correctly. There’s a big focus on data, and we’ve been on a huge transformation as a business over the past few years to make sure that data is at the core of what we do.

We now have an idea of our ideal stock based on location, and that’s something we didn’t have four years ago. A big focus on our colleagues has come in, with both the development and retainment of them. And again, listening to the

customer. We’ve got to make sure we’re listening to them and constantly evolving and changing the business.

US: I think, for me, it’s just old-fashioned values.

Treat people the way you want to be treated. Be fair, sell a good product and people will come back to you. Simple as that, really.

JC: Stock is important and so is marketing but I think that people are the most important thing.

It’s people who are talking to the customer every day, and if you’ve got bad people in your organisation get rid of them. You need good people who have the morals that you have.

You try to instil that into your team, and if you do, you’re always going to do well. You have to be adaptive, too. The market has changed and it’s a different industry to what it was when we opened in 2010. If you stick with your old ways you’re not going to grow – you have to adapt.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 45

CONGRATULATIONS CAR DEALER ON YOUR 100 TH EDITION

As proud sponsors of CDX15, 16 and 17, everyone at GForces wishes you much success with your next 100 issues and we look forward to sharing the innovation and excitement you bring to our industry.

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: TWITTER 140

We reveal the dealers that This exclusive session has been gaining momentum since it was launched three years ago. Many dealers see Twitter as a key part of their operation and a place in our prestigious list is highly sought after. LAURA THOMSON reports.

F

or the fourth year in a row, we compiled a list of the most influential dealers on Twitter, and this time around, the Klout scores were closer than ever.

All 200 dealers on our preliminary list were invited to an exclusive session at CDX16, where Lucy McHenry, head of agency sales at Twitter, took to the stage to reveal the allimportant top 140.

In a change to previous years, where our list featured 150 dealers, we whittled it down to just 140, in keeping with the blue bird’s character count.

This session has been gaining momentum ever since it was launched in 2013, with dealers clamouring to find out if and where they feature on the list.

Last year it was Prestige Diesels that claimed the top spot, and in an impressive display of resilience, the small dealership once again took home the overall prize, alongside the title of Most Influential Independent Dealer 2016.

The Portsmouth dealership boasted a Klout

score of 75, up a point on last year’s tally. An impressive margin of three Klout points was seen between Prestige Diesels and runner-up Imperial Car Sales, which gained four points and moved up one place from the 2015 list.

Third place went to Romans International, which also scooped the awards of Best Follower Ratio and Highest Climber – an impressive feat by a firm that didn’t even make it on to last year’s list.

After presenting the awards, McHenry gave a presentation to attendees on how to make the most of Twitter, emphasising the importance of sending the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Turning to the automotive sector, she said that Twitter users can be very passionate about cars. She added that the social media channel can play an important role in the carbuying process and described how the site can be best used for brand campaigns and sponsorship.

Throughout the year, we have been watching as dealers’ Klout scores fluctuated, and it was only at the start of May that we finalised our list of the

Delegates were told which dealerships were our six award winners – and found out who had made the Top 140 list top 140, in order to keep it as fair and accurate as possible. Klout uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence, and points are awarded on a scale of one to 100.

For our Top 140, where Klout scores were the same, we took follower numbers into account.

While there is still a long way to go before scores in the 90s are featuring on our annual list, we have already seen progress since it was launched. Back in 2013, the list, which was only 100 names long, saw scores of between 32 and 65, whereas this year’s range from 45 to 75.

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL DEALERS ON TWITTER 2016 Pos Name 1 Alexis Cassey 2 Imperial Car Sales 3 Romans International 4 Arnold Clark 5 Ridgeway Group 6 Big Cars Ltd 7 Swansway Group 8 Dick Lovett 9 Caroline Shield 10 Harwoods Group 11 CarShop UK 12 Benfield 13 Motorpoint 14 Stoneacre Motor Group 15 Mercedes-Benz Retail 16 Perrys 17 JCT600 18 Stafford Audi 19 TC Harrison Ford 20 Steven Eagell Toyota 21 Vantage Motor Group 22 Evans Halshaw 23 Umesh Samani 24 TH Boler Automotive 25 Crewe Audi 26 RRG Group 27 Jennings Motor Group 28 Porsche Retail Group 29 Jim Reid Vehicle Sales 30 John Clark 31 Redline Cars 32 Vanarama 33 Stan Palmer Honda 34 Stoke Audi 35 Greenhous

48 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Screen Name @PrestigeDiesels @ImperialCar @RomansCars @ArnoldClark @RidgewayGroup @BigCarsLtd @swanswaygroup @dicklovett @simonshieldcars @HarwoodsGroup @CarShopUK @DriveBenfield @motorpoint @stoneacremotors @MB_Retail @perrysmotors @jct600 @STAFFORDAUDI @TCHarrisonFord @StevenEagell @VantageMotorGrp @evanshalshawuk @specialistcars1 @THBoler @creweaudi @rrg_group @Jennings_Group @PorscheRetail @jimreidvehicle @johnclarkmotors @RedlineCarsUK @Vanarama @StanPalmerHonda @stokeaudi @greenhous

Klout Followers Movement 75 15,600 STATIC 72 6,506 +1 71 9,611 NEW 70 11,300 +5 70 7,217 NEW 69 15,800 +76 68 6,195 STATIC 68 4,475 +3 67 8,513 -7 66 12,600 -5 65 4,091 NEW 64 9,222 -4 64 6,940 +11 64 6,793 +7 63 8,649 -3 63 7,159 -12 63 5,796 +23 63 4,411 STATIC 63 2,554 STATIC 63 2,299 NEW 63 1,648 +22 62 12,700 -16 62 4,468 -9 61 11,000 NEW 61 3,211 -8 61 2,475 +8 61 623 +22 60 14,500 -15 60 4,372 -19 60 1,562 +2 60 1,026 NEW 59 12,600 -12 59 4,659 -10 59 2,491 NEW 59 1,458 -4

Pos Name 36 Huntington Toyota 37 Lease4Less 38 Wrexham Volkswagen 39 Hendy Group 40 Giles Usher 41 Saxton 4x4 42 Simon Bailes Peugeot 43 Leasing Options Ltd 44 All Vehicle Contracts 45 Stratstone 46 Crewe Volkswagen 47 Stafford Land Rover 48 Ivan Hamill Cars 49 Essex Auto Group 50 Ridgeway BMW 51 Newmarket Motor Co 52 Philip Raby Porsche 53 Imperial Commercials 54 Go Vauxhall 55 Autofarm 1973 Ltd 56 Sandicliffe 57 Peugeot Chester 58 Luscombe’s Leeds 59 Lexus Woodford 60 Lookers 61 Jardine Audi 62 Glyn Hopkin Group 63 HA Fox Jaguar 64 Beck Evans 65 Caffyns Group 66 Ridgeway Volkswagen 67 Humphris Oxford 68 Mike Brewer Motors 69 Peter Cooper VW 70 Jemca Car Group

Screen Name @ToyotaofHunt @Lease4Less @WrexhamVW @hendygroup @cars_portsmouth @Saxton4x4 @sbpeugeot @LeasingOptions @AVC_Leasing @stratstoneuk @crewevw @LandRoverStaffs @ivanhamillcars @EssexAutoGroup @RidgewayBMW @NewmarketCars @RabyPorsche @ictruckandvan @GoVauxhall @Autofarm @Sandicliffe @swanswaychester @RobinLuscombe @Lexus_Woodford @LookersGroup @JardineAudi @GlynHopkinGroup @hafoxjaguar @beckevans2000 @CaffynsGroup @RidgewayVW @HumprisOxford @mikebrewermotor @PeterCooperVW @JemcaCarGroup

Klout Followers Movement 58 3,251 NEW 58 3,199 +8 58 3,145 -23 58 2,741 -1 57 6,677 -15 57 2,724 -19 57 977 +31 57 1,597 +56 56 8,606 -15 56 3,505 +19 56 2,801 -11 56 2,148 -10 56 2,137 +4 56 1,811 +88 56 758 NEW 55 6,581 -35 55 6,334 -25 55 5,042 +33 55 4,198 NEW 55 3,977 +22 55 3,230 -6 55 2,208 NEW 55 1,147 +4 54 4,737 +25 54 2,950 -32 54 2,185 -6 54 2,127 -14 54 1,169 NEW 53 3,768 NEW 53 3,607 -8 53 2,800 -15 53 1,298 -11 52 16,700 NEW 52 4,299 +27 52 2,887 -37

have got real Klout AWARD WINNERS Most Influential Dealer 2016 Prestige Diesels & Sports Limited @PrestigeDiesels Most Influential Franchised Dealer 2016 Arnold Clark @ArnoldClark Most Influential Independent Dealer 2016 Prestige Diesels & Sports Limited @PrestigeDiesels Best Follower Ratio 2016 Romans International @RomansCars Highest Climber 2016 Romans International @RomansCars Tweeters’ Tweeter of the Year 2016 Ridgeway Group @RidgewayGroup

Pos Name 71 Ridgeway Audi 72 Johnsons Cars 73 Thames Motor Group 74 VW Vans Birmingham 75 Renault Retail UK 76 Tom Hartley 77 Sandles Cars 78 Bristol Street Motors 79 The Car People 80 JA Autos Ltd 81 Ridgeway Mercedes 82 Sinclair Audi 83 Butlers Vehicles 84 Swansway Citroen 85 Captain Caralot 86 Tom Hartley 87 Small Car Company 88 Marshall Group 89 Crewe Seat 90 Farmer & Carlisle 91 Liverpool Van Centre 92 Ridgeway Mini 93 Robert Forrester 94 TrustFord 95 Optimum Vehicles 96 Romford Kia 97 HR Owen 98 Aston Martin Works 99 Pentagon 100 Vindis Group 101 Ben 102 Volvo Cars London 103 RMB Automotive 104 Just Audi VW Lincoln 105 Vertu Honda

Screen Name @RidgewayAudi @johnsonscars @ThamesMotor @Birminghamvwcv @RenaultRetailUK @TomHartleyJnr @Sandlescars @BristolStreetMotors @thecarpeople @JA_Autos @RidgewayMerc @SinclairAudi @Butlersvehicle @SwanswayCitroen @CaptainCaralot @TomHartleySnr @smallcarcompany @marshallgroup @Creweseat @ToyotaLeasing @liverpoolVWCV @RidgewayMini @vertumotors @TrustFordUK @OptimumVehicles @romfordkia @HR_Owen @AstonMartinWork @JimatPentagon @vindisgroup @criteriacars @volvocarslondon @RMBAuto @Justaudivw @Vertuhonda

Klout Followers Movement 52 2,809 NEW 52 2,285 NEW 52 1,208 -29 52 1,040 NEW 52 985 +16 51 16,400 NEW 51 6,287 -41 51 6,205 -36 51 4,203 +69 51 3,778 -15 51 3,310 NEW 51 2,678 +25 51 1,356 +60 51 845 NEW 50 32,500 -39 50 6,069 NEW 50 1,774 NEW 50 1,609 NEW 50 1,595 NEW 50 1,372 -43 50 878 +50 50 335 NEW 49 6,057 NEW 49 1,692 +2 49 1,568 NEW 49 85 NEW 48 7,147 +4 48 4,169 -25 48 3,608 NEW 48 2,416 -42 48 1,621 -48 48 1,460 NEW 48 1,414 -24 48 1,370 NEW 48 948 +10

Pos Name 106 Snows Lexus 107 Nissan Retail Group 108 Beadles Toyota 109 Read Motor Group 110 Ocean BMW 111 Ringways Motor Group 112 Alexanders Prestige 113 Hippo Motor Group 114 Arval UK 115 Sinclair Mercedes 116 Wessex Garages 117 Lexus Stockport 118 Pentagon Mercedes 119 Westbury Garage 120 Agnew Group 121 Stockport Honda 122 Ridgeway Land Rover 123 Griffin Mill 124 Swansway Manchester 125 Sturgess Land Rover 126 Amari 127 Concept Car Leasing 128 Contract Hire And Leasing 129 Toyota Woodford 130 Rod Lloyd & Team 131 My Big Green Fleet 132 Drive Vauxhall 133 Fontain Motors 134 Ridgeway Jaguar 135 Williams BMW 136 Sandown Mercedes 137 Lancaster BMW MK 138 Hawkins Motor Group 139 John Holland 140 John Hartley Cars

Screen Name @SnowsLexus @NissanRetailUK @BeadlesToyota @ReadMotorGroup @Ocean_BMW @Ringways @Alexanders_Cars @hippomotorgroup @Arval_UK @SinclairMerc @wessexgarages @LexusStockport @PentagonMerc @Westburygarage @AgnewGroup @StockportHonda @LandRoverOxford @griffinmill @SwanswayMCR @SturgessLR @AMARISUPERCARS @vehicle_lease @ContractHire @ToyotaWoodford @LowCostVans @MyBigGreenFleet @DriveVauxhall @FontainMotors @RidgewayJaguar @Williams_BMW @SandownMercedes @LancasterBMW @HawkinsMG @Jhollandcars @JohnHartleyCars

Klout Followers Movement 48 571 NEW 48 564 -3 48 367 -31 48 221 NEW 47 12,500 -51 47 5,024 NEW 47 4,943 NEW 47 3,721 -60 47 3,260 NEW 47 3,181 +15 47 2,813 -49 47 2,408 -28 47 2,232 NEW 47 1,460 NEW 47 1,422 -43 47 1,066 -47 47 1,038 NEW 47 932 -66 47 758 +17 47 629 -28 46 6,206 +61 46 5,427 -87 46 4,418 NEW 46 2,044 NEW 46 1,639 +28 46 1,630 NEW 46 1,541 -50 46 1,299 NEW 46 964 NEW 46 943 NEW 46 657 NEW 46 268 -17 45 3,319 -36 45 3,019 NEW 45 2,334 -40

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: WOMEN IN THE MOTOR INDUSTRY

Striking a blow in name of equality Proving more popular than ever, this breakout session highlighted the ongoing struggle against discrimination, and explored ways of making sure young women aren’t deterred from an automotive career. SOPHIE WILLIAMSON-STOTHERT reports

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his year’s Women in the Motor Industry breakout session attracted an impressive 120 sign-ups and was described by one attendee as an ‘informative and refreshing event for all to draw inspiration from’.

WITMI sees influential female speakers addressing women who work across all areas of the automotive and motorsport worlds, from

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sales executive and managers to professional drivers and qualified engineers.

Car Dealer Magazine’s goal is to help, inspire and encourage a new generation of talent and provide an open forum for those women already working across the industry.

Launched in 2015, the WITMI session was hosted this time by lawyer Miriam González Durántez, who is a partner at international legal practice Dechert LLP and a driving force behind the Inspiring Women campaign, which sees some 28,000 women visiting schools across the country in a bid to inspire female pupils to consider a wide range of professions.

The campaign was launched in October 2013 and is supported by the UK Automotive 30% Club, which was founded in January 2016 by Julia Muir. The club aims to close the gender gap in the UK’s motor industry by seeking out and recruiting talented women to fill at least 30 per cent of key leadership positions by 2030, since 30 per cent is seen as a tipping point for change in a male-dominated group.

This year’s WITMI panel comprised professional stunt driver and RMA Track Days event manager Annalese Ferrari; Muir, who is the managing director of Gaia Innovation Ltd; head of sales at GardX Protection Amanda Massey and F1 journalist and former racing driver Georgie Shaw.

For the first time, our flourishing session was open to men and women, helping the automotive industry’s leading female figures express their views and plans for the future to everyone involved in the sector and, more importantly, to the decision-makers at the top of the ladder.

To start the MIRIAM proceedings, our four key GONZÁLEZ speakers gave attendees DURÁNTEZ an insight into their Inspiring Women own careers, and champion throughout the session delegates were able to ask

GEORGIE SHAW

Former racing driver and F1 journalist

questions, provide support and even share their own personal experiences with the audience.

Muir said: ‘We must approach women from a young age, when they’re exploring all avenues and deciding which career paths they wish to venture on.

‘We must also reach out to young males, who also need to understand the importance of working alongside women – we have to break the tradition of women feeling they have to take a supporting role when they can take the lead.

During the session, guests raised a number of questions and discussion points, including some of the difficulties female representatives face securing a job or even climbing the career ladder, and how to be able to prove to their employers that they have what it takes.

In contrast, others emphasised how gender was irrelevant in the automotive sector. ‘If you’ve got the skills and the enthusiasm, then you’re right for the job,’ said one of them.

JULIA MUIR

Founder of the UK Automotive 30% Club

Massey, who has more than 25 years’ experience working within the automotive industry, currently heads a team of national and regional account managers in the UK and Ireland, and she told the session: ‘There’s clearly still a long way to go before women are regarded as equals to men, but that’s not to say we’re not as respected as they are by potential employers, our managers or even by our clients and customers.

‘Employment shouldn’t be based on age or gender discrimination, it should be focused on ensuring that the most suitable, qualified and driven candidate is hired.’

Another delegate at the breakout session said: ‘We often find young women are put off pursuing a career in sectors such as automotive because of the lack of female representatives and the oldfashioned stigma left by past generations.

‘I think it’s a case of ensuring that young women are given the necessary support and backing they require to push on and not be

AMANDA MASSEY

Head of sales at GardX Protection

deterred by being the minority – because that will eventually change.’ Shaw said. ‘A great deal has changed since my career took off in the 1960s and ’70s,’ she said.

‘Back then, the world of motor racing was predominantly male-dominated, but there were

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We have to break the tradition of women feeling they have to take a supporting role when they can take the lead.

ANNALESE FERRARI

Stunt driver and event manager at RMA Track Days

a fair few ladies getting in on the action, and although they may not have been in the spotlight, they were respected and admired for their achievements, and still are today.

‘We must continue to support and encourage fellow female racers, engineers, writers and those working in other areas to keep on track and continue their pledge.’

Ferrari said: ‘Despite many significant leaps forward for women in the automotive world, I still believe there are several barriers to break down and it’s important that women can support each other in their industry.

‘The industry might still be perceived as male-dominated but I think it’s important that we hear less of this statement and more about the recognition of the joint workforce – male and female – driving it forward.

‘I hope soon I’ll be sat here participating in the “People in the Motor Industry” session.’

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: EXPO IN PICTURES

‘Another great event from Welcoming 100 exhibitors and more than 2,100 delegates, Car Dealer Magazine celebrates the success of the largest UK expo of its kind in pictures.

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longside the lively debates at the Car Dealer Live Stage, as well as 20 hours of mustattend workshops staged by some of the best-known and most respected names in the automotive industry, CDX played host to the largest expo of its kind in the UK. Stretching through three massive halls covering 5,500 square metres of The Wing at Silverstone, CDX16 welcomed almost 100 firms, including Carwow, Auto Volo, Auto Trader, GardX and the AA, who filled the space with their stunning state-of-the-art stands. Many exhibitors delivered some great deals to those present – of which 50 per cent were exclusive to our event.

More than 2,100 delegates flocked to the expo and, as well as listen to the debates and attend the workshops, were able to jump into a ‘playseat’ on the DCM Connected stand and enjoy a hot lap of the Silverstone circuit; challenge their colleagues in a head-to-head race on Manheim’s Scalextric layout; or even enjoy a relaxing massage and a cup of coffee with Carwow.

Adam O’Neill, dealer marketing manager at the RAC, said: ‘In a nutshell, CDX16 was yet another great event from the Car Dealer team.

‘We had a very busy day and made some really useful contacts. It was also really good to get our dealers to come along to our first ever RAC dealer conference, which we held at the expo.’

Georgia Foley, events executive at IMI, said: ‘CDX was a brilliant and worthwhile event, where we enagaged in quality conversations with key decision makers from the auto industry.’

And Stefan Voloseniuc, CEO at Auto Volo, added: ‘It was clear from the moment you stepped through the doors of The Wing at Silverstone that Car Dealer had raised the bar on last year’s CDX event. We met hundreds of dealers, engaged with lots of contacts and generated masses of great business.’

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We engaged in quality conversations with key decision makers.

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Car Dealer’

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS MIKE HAWES – SMMT The march of technology, the aftermath of the VW scandal, and the state of the market – all were topics covered by the chief executive of the SMMT.

Mike Hawes gets a point across

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he automotive industry faces a significant challenge to restore the public’s confidence in vehicle emission figures – and dealers have an important role to play, SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes told his audience at CDX. Describing the scandal that broke last September as ‘the elephant in the room,’ Hawes said that the industry wasn’t out of the woods yet but had been unfairly tarnished by the affair.

He said: ‘There is concern around emissions, deservedly so, but the industry has made significant progress in improving NOx emissions and all but eliminating particulate emissions.

‘In fact, a whole basket of emissions have been largely eradicated compared to a car from 10 to 15 years ago. Buyers can be confident that the cars they are buying are the cleanest that have ever been put on the road.’

Hawes mentioned government research that demonstrated only one manufacturer had been proved to be cheating. He said: ‘Testing is a very complex area and, with no disrespect, some media outlets like to go for a headline.

‘If you look at what’s happened around the testing regime, some of the headlines coming out of the government report were effectively, ‘‘Government finds more cars have been cheating’’. No they didn’t. They clearly found that no-one other than that one brand had a test manipulation device on it. For dealers, it is about explaining to the public that the vehicles they’re selling are robust, they’re legal, they’re compliant.’

Hawes went on to discuss new rules that are on the way for manufacturers next year.

He said: ‘Any new car put on the road will have to perform pretty much as it does in the lab irrespective of conditions.

‘There’s a slight variation to allow for particular extremities but essentially it means that the test performance you see in a lab has to be replicated on the road, whether it’s hot, whether it’s cold, whether you’re driving at 2,000 metres, driving 160 kilometres or 20 kilometres. It must perform the same and that is a major engineering challenge. That is going to affect the way vehicles

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It is about explaining to the public that vehicles are legal and compliant.

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Emissions: We still face a big challenge are designed and the technologies they contain.

We also have tougher CO2 regulations coming.

‘The nature of vehicles themselves is changing – we’ve already seen the advent of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. The choice is going to grow and the emissions challenge remains intense.’

Turning to the current growth in the new car market, Hawes said consumer confidence was one of the drivers behind it.

He added: ‘We also have relatively low interest rates, which mean relatively low payments. And residual values seem to be holding up reasonably well – there’s still a strong second-hand market so that makes the cost of ownership over that three-year cycle relatively stable. And look at the technology in the new models. It is still a very exciting thing to do to purchase a new vehicle.’

Hawes said the automotive industry would face more change in the next 10 to 15 years than it had in the last 50.

‘We commissioned KPMG to do a report looking at connected and autonomous vehicles for the UK,’ he said. ‘It put the benefits that would accrue at £51bn gross added value by 2030.

Only about £1bn of that will naturally accrue to the automotive sector so the other £50bn is up for grabs – and that’s around the data.

‘As a car becomes more connected, data has a

huge monetary value if you can mine it and if you can monetise it. The high-value tech companies, that’s what they’re very good at.

‘Overall, the market is in relatively good shape,’ Hawes said. ‘The UK is a very competitive place to make cars at the moment.’

The EU referendum was still a month or so away when CDX took place. What do SMMT members think would be the best outcome?

Well, the organisation conducted a survey at the start of the year using independent pollsters ComRes. ‘We had a fantastic response rate and the results were pretty clear,’ Hawes said.

‘Seventy-seven per cent of our members said that for their business it would be better to stay.

Nine per cent said it would be better to leave and 14 per cent were undecided. There was a very clear majority in favour of staying.’

SCOTT SINCLAIR - GOOGLE

Think outside the box to get customers through the door Websites must work on mobiles these days, delegates are told. Make sure your site loads speedily and try video – it’s all about giving buyers the information they need.

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cott Sinclair is an industry manager within Google, working with all things automotive inside the search engine giant. A speaker at last year’s CDX, he was an even bigger hit at this year’s event, drawing one of the biggest crowds of the day.

With a day-to-day view of how search engine trends affect car sales, Sinclair has a great insight into how dealers can optimise their websites to sell more cars.

Sinclair works to drive more customers in the direction of dealers. His biggest tip of the day?

‘Make sure your website works on a mobile phone.’ Customers need to be able to access dealer sites on the move, and with more people than ever browsing the internet on their phones, it’s crucial that a car advert can be accessed away from a laptop.

With 100 per cent growth in the number of people watching videos on YouTube, Sinclair pointed out that it was imperative that dealers created content that is useful for the people they’re trying to sell cars to.

He explained how dealers must tailor their websites and adverts according to the customer – using techniques as simple as explaining how certain cars are more efficient than others.

How can dealers make sure that people visit their websites? Make sure the sites feature the keywords that people use.

Sinclair pointed out how dealers need to think outside of the box in order to get buyers through the door – and that website analytics can be used to point them in the right direction.

Speed appears to be the name of the game in the website world. ‘If you load up BBC iPlayer for last night’s episode of The Apprentice, and you sit there waiting for two minutes with the pink buffering circle, it’s annoying.

Think about that same experience for your users when your website doesn’t load,’ said Sinclair.

It appears that although dealers may spend hours fine-tuning their

websites, the best thing they can do is to make sure that they load quickly.

With more than 40 per cent of people choosing to use their phones over their computers, Sinclair was keen to show delegates that they needed to optimise their websites for mobile in order to succeed. On top of that, 40 per cent of all carbuying search terms are entered on a smartphone.

Appealing to smaller and larger car dealers alike, Sinclair was able to show all who attended that no matter what their budget was, they could easily tailor the way their websites work.

Highlighting that each and every person had an HD camera in their pocket in the form of a smartphone, he urged people to give video walkthroughs a try – adding that it was a small step towards giving customers the information that they needed. ‘Think about your content.

It doesn’t have to be high in production value. Yes, it needs to be well

Scott Sinclair talks to Rebecca Chaplin thought through, but it doesn’t have to cost a lot to be valuable to you.’

Working at Google gives Sinclair some of the very best up-to-date statistics on car-buying habits. He was able to tell delegates that before a customer even enters a dealership, they have spent between 1.7 and 3.6 months researching the car. Rather than picking up brochures at each and every dealership, buyers now are choosing to research online and only go to the dealership when they’re prepared to make a purchase.

Sinclair told delegates that really, the more people that they could get through the door the better. By optimising their websites, they would be able to allow more customers to choose their cars and make the final trip to the forecourt.

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Think about your content. It doesn’t have to be high in production value.

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS JIM HOLDER – HAYMARKET AUTOMOTIVE

The write stuff – and how it can influence trade Jim Holder addresses the audience

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s the editorial director of Haymarket Automotive, Jim Holder is in charge of top titles such as Autocar, What Car? and PistonHeads.

If you want someone who knows how to produce award-winning and interesting content, he’s the man to whom you want to speak. However, he’s also keen on relaying the importance of dealers in the industry and the important role they play in the car-buying process.

Holder has had a 20-year journey through the automotive sector and is one of the bestknown names in the business. At CDX, he talked about how car buyers flock to What Car? to find honest consumer advice on nearly every car on sale today. With buyers visiting the title’s website during the last five weeks before they buy a vehicle, Holder knows exactly what they’re looking for in a new car.

He told the audience that around 90 per cent of new car buyers who visited a manufacturer website went on to view an independent review site. ‘People want an independent approval of the decisions they’re making,’ he said, ‘Whenever you buy something, you want approval of what you’re about to do.’

Turning to the subject of dealers, Holder pointed out that customers need a good experience at the end of the buying journey.

He added that What Car? would soon be rolling out a new service that would pave the way for consumers from the research stage right to the dealers’ front door. ‘It’s all about getting 56 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

The editorial director of Haymarket Automotive knows exactly what people are looking for in a new car, thanks to his titles’ many readers consumers the right car, at the right price, in the right location.’ Aware of competition in the online car-buying marketplace, Holder made delegates aware that Haymarket’s way of doing things would be a lot different to other comparison sites.

‘What Car? has a trust that is nearly unrivalled,’ he said. ‘We have to take that trust right to the end of the buying process and make sure that both the dealer and customer are getting the right deal – that’s the way we want to work.’

Very much on the other side of the system, he told eager dealers just what consumers thought of the way cars are sold, saying that most people got in touch after a bad experience buying a car, rather than a good one.

One of the biggest factors in the car-buying process, according to Holder, is trust.

He said buyers had a poor experience when they felt that they weren’t being given a trustworthy service, either through poor treatment or bad deals.

With buyers more clued-up than ever, Holder told delegates that the public wouldn’t be fooled

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Customer service isn’t something that you just do.

quite so easily as before. ‘Customers will complain if they think that a dealer is trying to get too good a deal out of them.’

There was, of course, a huge amount of praise for dealers. Holder pointed out they are getting more clued-up when it comes to social media and technology, giving buyers a better insight into the type of car they’re thinking of getting.

‘Customer service isn’t something that you just do – it’s something that wins you sales,’ he said, speaking highly of some of the best dealers in the country. The relationship between dealer and customer had to be strong, and it would then provide dealers with a constant stream of sales. Holder added that he had been told by car buyers that sometimes their treatment by a dealer mattered more than anything else – even more than which car they buy.

While on the topic of social media, he said it was tricky to keep on top of trends – but it could be done. ‘There’s a tendency to be more flippant with social media, but finding the balance is the hardest part – not just for us, but for dealers, too.’

LUCY McHENRY – TWITTER

The opportunities for users go far beyond 140 characters This social media platform is a growing area of marketing potential and has the tools that businesses need to target the right market

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witter has been one of the fastestgrowing media outlets since its launch in July 2006, with 310 million monthly users globally as of March this year and millions of tweets sent every day.

This means there is a large source of potential customers for businesses to tap into, and for car dealerships this could be – and has been – a useful tool to gain market interest.

Lucy McHenry, Twitter’s head of agency sales, reinforced the idea that the social media site is one of the growing areas of marketing opportunities – and dismissed some popular untruths about the service.

‘When people think of Twitter they think of the 140 characters, but it is so much more than that, such as being able to use pictures, videos and polling features, so there are lots of opportunities there,’ she said.

‘In the past 12 months, the Twitter creative canvas has changed beyond recognition, and after we acquired Periscope last year, which is a live broadcasting application, we have integrated the app’s features into the Twitter feed, giving our users the chance to collect information in real time – something that has been in Twitter’s DNA since we launched.’

Another platform introduced recently, called Leash, connects advertisers and brands to creative people who can produce content for the business, which can be used across multiple platforms.

McHenry also highlighted that users want the latest news on ‘upgrades, features and deals’ and that ‘users want their questions answered’. She continued: ‘Users expect brands and accounts to reply and engage in a conversation and stay up to date with content, and the more you do this, the more users will trust you and are likely to remain faithful to your brand.’

Twitter provides businesses with tools to target the right market and McHenry emphasised that the platform can be used to identify the difference between the right message for existing users and new customers. Timing is also key to keeping customers absorbed by a business’s content, with McHenry saying: ‘People are

Lucy McHenry on stage with James Baggott

“

Make sure you keep on top of Moments and live events and launches. choosing to come and follow you as a dealership.

You need to make sure that if you have a base of followers your content is engaging and if they try to contact you that you get back to them as soon as you can.

‘You should also ensure that you schedule content that will engage your user base on a regular basis so that your page doesn’t go stale and push users away.

‘Twitter happens in real time, so make sure

you keep on top of Moments and live events and launches so you can reply to your customers professionally.’ Asked whether it was a good use of a company’s money to put time into Twitter, McHenry reassured the delegates of the usefulness of the site in driving business.

‘We can offer recommendations over which plans can work for your business, what trends and patterns we are seeing and what research is telling us so you can achieve your goals and targets,’ she said. ‘But clearly, we need to understand what your goals are and then we can support you in the best way and provide the right information and guidance.’

Regarding targeting options, McHenry said: ‘We can cater your reach to be more bespoke and pinpointed, and the more focused you become, the volume of your inventory will be smaller and the potential audience will become greater and stronger.’

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DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS BRAD LITTLE – FACEBOOK

So much to gain by using power of social media Group boss tells delegates how website’s features offer massive potential for lead generation within the UK market

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or car dealerships, social media should be a key part of reaching out to the general public and for many it should be used to make sure that the vehicles on sale are advertised as much as possible.

The medium that has taken the world by storm since being introduced and is one of the most popular sites is Facebook, and at CDX16, Brad Little, the company’s group head of fast-moving consumer goods, entertainment and automotive, emphasised that the ever-changing site was helping to revolutionise the car-buying and selling process. He wanted to make the attending delegates aware that the features currently in place on Facebook, such as Messenger and user data tracking, were there to help businesses contact their target market and offer more leadgeneration opportunities.

‘We at Facebook are helping businesses through the awareness and launch phases to help reach out to the 25-30 million users in the UK,’ Little said, ‘and we can optimise the placement of advertising that could convert into a test drive or a sale, rather than just recognising customers who will click through a lead or submit interest.’

Mobile technology has been one of the driving forces for the site and technology in general and Little commented: “Fifty to sixty per cent of all internet traffic is now through a mobile device and having a mobile strategy is key for businesses to progress.

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show people and those feeds are personalised so people can see what they want.

‘Local awareness ads, which are in beta right now, are placed using geolocation software to find consumers that are likely to convert into sales, and the customer can then call you from their phone and book a test drive or be shown where you are so then they can look around your dealership.’ Little highlighted the interconnectivity of Facebook’s services, saying: ‘We can take the entire stock list of Amazon and eBay and products in a dealer network, so we can dynamically find which stock list can be

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We will continue to use cookies to analyse what people search for.

suited to each individual user as they come on Facebook and increase conversions of clicks to sales.’ Thanks to his extensive experience while at Nielsen, a global information and measurement company that compiles statistical reports to help businesses with relevant data, Little was able to explain how user engagement and visits didn’t always match up to sales figures.

‘I’ve had a decade of experience at Nielsen, and digital metric such as clicks and engagements show very little correlation between the engagement rate and sales.’

He said Facebook based advertisements on how valuable they would be to the business and on a high conversion rate of visits to sales.

Facebook’s future projects will also be helpful to drive business, with Little saying: ‘We will continue to use cookies to analyse how people use the internet and what they search for. In the next three to five years, we’re looking to develop WhatsApp and Oculus, our virtual reality service, and help to connect users more smoothly and give people the power to share.

‘Oculus Rift has attracted big interest from the automotive industry with augmented and virtual reality as you could be test-driving a car before it’s built, or in a showroom use it to customise a vehicle virtually and then put on the production line and built, which is a pretty interesting opportunity.’ Little also emphasised the importance of Facebook Messenger, saying: ‘It could be utilised by dealers to reach out to their target market and help with answering inquiries.’

1 in 3 vehicles has a hidden history

Stolen

Plate Change Outstanding Finance

Write-o

Cloned

Switched VIN Number

Protect your reputation Visit the website to get your free checklist: www.cap-hpi.com/history 0113 223 2105 CarDealerMag.co.uk | 59

DASHBOARD. CDX16: CAR DEALER LIVE STAGE – BREXIT

EU debate: should we stay CDX16 took place almost exactly a month before the referendum on the UK’s continued membership – or otherwise – of the EU. It’s a hot topic for the automotive industry, and we invited some leading figures – with very different views – to have their say. SOPHIE WILLIAMSON-STOTHERT reports

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he future of the UK’s presence in Europe and our thriving automotive industry hangs in the balance, as we continue to weigh up the benefits or otherwise of leaving or staying in the EU. The pros and cons were keenly debated on the live stage at CDX16, where leading automotive figures provided their views on what would happen to new and used car sales figures and British manufacturing if we voted to leave.

Mike Jones, chairman of profitability specialists ASE; Nathan Coe, operations director at Auto Trader; and Rupert Pontin, head of valuations at Glass’s, joined Andrew Fraser of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, and Nigel Griffiths of Leave.EU, to engage in a lively discussion. The five panellists were each given a minute to state their case.

Kicking off the debate, Fraser said: ‘I grew up in Britain in the 1960s and ’70s. The British car industry was a case for national shame.

‘From 1975 when many of us voted to join the then common market, which became the European Union, we have seen a transformation.

We no longer talk of the British car industry; we talk of the car industry in Britain – it’s dominated by foreign investors.

‘Almost 100 per cent of the mass market is owned by foreign companies who have chosen Britain to be the home of their manufacturing across a market of 500m people. Sixty-three per cent of the GDP of this country is foreign-owned and those owners are here because they want Britain to be at the heart of the single market.

‘We’re now selling nearly three million vehicles a year in Britain – we have one of the most successful car industries in the world and it is intertwined with the European market. To put that at risk is a shameful position to take.

‘We must stay in!’

In response to Fraser’s speech, Griffiths said:

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British business is constrained by Europe, not enhanced by it.

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‘Congratulations on one of the most successful sectors in this country. You are generating more wealth than the next biggest – the petroleum sector – and with 2.6m sales last year and 2.7m this year, you’re hitting new records.

‘But at the moment, British business is constrained by Europe, not enhanced by it. At the moment, we are able to export more easily to the rest of the world than in fact we are to Europe, which is why we’ve got a £62bn deficit with the EU but a £27bn surplus with the rest of the world.

‘If we look at the car industry, the notion that there would be any sort of retaliation when on June 24 we leave the EU is ludicrous, because while three million UK jobs are dependent on our exports to the EU, five million jobs there are dependent on their imports here.’

Mike Jones of ASE said: ‘I am indeed very passionate about the motor industry but I’m

ANDREW FRASER

Britain Stronger in Europe campaign

MIKE JONES

Chairman of ASE

passionate in a different way. I come at this from an agnostic point of view. I can give you my thoughts and feedback on all the data we collect from all the dealers we speak to across the world on what the implications will be.

‘We can look at the day-to-day effects of the two previous speakers standing on television and arguing with each other and what that’s currently doing to the consumer, what we think it will do going forwards, and what we’re seeing from a data point of view.

‘I’m agnostic – I’m working out who’s making the most money and how they’re going to do it.’

When prompted to give his response, Rupert Pontin of Glass’s, explained: ‘We sit, view and report on what goes on in the marketplace.

‘From the point of view of activity from new car sales and from the used car market, we’re currently enjoying a particularly good run.

‘To leave Europe may be seen to be a poor thing to do, but as a company we review the market place and make judgment on what we see.’

Nathan Coe of Auto Trader added: ‘At Auto Trader, when we look at our customers and our manufacturers, the SMMT has said that the manufacturers are largely against it and the NFDA

RUPERT PONTIN

Head of valuations at Glass’s

NIGEL GRIFFITHS Leave.EU

or should we go?

(National Franchised Dealers’ Association) has found a similar view from their members.

‘What we’re seeing from the consumer perspective is slightly different. We spoke to 1,200 of them last week and 75 per cent said it’s not affecting the way they’re thinking about buying a car. What we know to be true is that there are more cars coming into this market over the next few years and Brexit is not going to change that.

What will give is the prices, exactly as Rupert said.

‘We believe either way that we go, dealers can still compete – there’s still going to be loads of cars sold and plenty of opportunity. It may get a little harder or it may continue to be the buoyant times we have now. We’re agnostic, too.’

Pontin added: ‘We know that consumer confidence has slipped slightly and I expect that whatever happens, we will have a period before the referendum over the next four weeks where things will be quieter, the referendum will happen, we’ll either Brexit or we won’t.

‘There will be a bounce back. Interestingly, when you talk about the degree of that bounce back, that’s the really difficult thing to answer and I’m not sure that any of us here can say with any certainty what will happen. In terms of used

NATHAN COE

Operations Director, Auto Trader

car activity, values are likely to suffer a little, but if there is good consumer demand, then don’t expect the values to come down too much.’

When questioned about whether or not leaving Europe would result in car prices rising, Jones said: ‘The exchange rate is a massive, massive influence in the UK car industry. We know it from living inside it. If the Euro rate is over 126 or 127, the manufacturers – with the majority of the cars being made in Europe and being pumped into the UK – make more money.

‘The current situation with the exchange rate last year has seen a flood of cars coming into the UK, helped by China and Russia slowing down and southern Europe not recovering yet – we’re in a supply-push market that is resulting in the registrations, not sales, we’re seeing at the moment.

‘All I can look at is what’s happening to the exchange rate. As people got nervous about Brexit, the pound weakened against the Euro and we’ve already seen some car brands starting to reduce supply into the UK. Over the past few weeks we have seen the pound pick up so it’s nearly back at 1.3. Looking at car prices, if Sterling is stronger against the Euro, then manufacturers

can continue with the great consumer offers that we’ve seen recently, we’ll continue seeing the cars coming into the UK, we’ll see the registrations and ultimately the sales.

‘The Euro rate is absolutely pivotal to what goes on in the UK motor trade.’

Following input from Car Dealer’s three industry experts, Nigel Griffiths and Andrew Fraser had another chance to comment.

Fraser concluded: ‘Let’s not break up a fantastic success story in Britain. The regeneration of the car industry over the past 30 years has been led by foreign investors.

‘I speak from personal experience; I was never in a meeting with any of those foreign investors or their suppliers without them talking of the importance of the single market.

‘Remember, only 40 per cent of the content of British cars is made in Britain and that is growing.

The most positive factor is that we don’t disrupt politically, economically, socially and culturally a working marketplace in which we have an inextricable role to play.

‘We’ve consistently attracted more investment from around the world into Europe than any other country. We are an open, liberal, tolerant country – that’s the sort of country I want my grandchildren to grow up in.

‘Did you know that 6.8 per cent of our workforce come from the European Union? And aren’t we lucky – 100,000 of them support the National Health Service and social care.

‘Do you want to send them home? We are part of solving the problems, we are not isolationists.

Let us not go back to the old ways.’

In response, Griffiths said: ‘I think the positives of leaving the EU are very clear.

‘We can decide what rules our Parliament makes and how they are enforced. It’s a myth to think that you can’t train or invest across Europe in the single market.

‘The most important fact is this: the head of the Remain campaign actually said earlier this year that wages would go up, if we left the EU. ‘That must be great news for you, because that means people will buy more and more cars. That’s why the case for leaving the EU is pretty unshakable in this industry.’

“

The Euro rate is pivotal to what goes on in the UK motor trade.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 61

DASHBOARD. CDX16: WORKSHOPS BCA

Training is key to handling part-ex cars properly

CITNOW

How video can build that all-important trust

Guy Thomas addresses his audience THE part-exchange process is an integral part of the motoring industry and BCA’s Guy Thomas highlighted the importance of the vehicle appraisal procedure. It’s important to make sure that dealership staff are trained to perform the part-exchange service in the right way.

During a workshop based on maximising the value of part-ex stock, Thomas, who is head of product development at BCA, also emphasised that although customers visit dealerships less frequently these days, when they do, they are more likely to be prepared to sign-off on a deal.

Thomas said: ‘The consumers are doing all the research online on sites such as Webuyanycar.com, and, by the time they get into the dealership, they’ve actually done a lot of research about what they are looking for. So, it is important that when they get to the dealership, they’re treated and handled in the right way.’

Thomas told his audience: ‘By the time some customers get to your dealership, they may already have an idea of how the deal is going to go in their heads.

‘They might have a finance quote, a partexchange quote and they might know roughly what they can afford. You shouldn’t be afraid of that because if you do everything right, the customer could be ready to deal there and then.’

Research carried out by BCA showed that 45 per cent of dealerships said part-exchange vehicles were the single most important part of their stock and Thomas reaffirmed the point that dealership staff need to be fully trained in appraising vehicles, otherwise it could cost the business a significant amount of money.

‘If you identify a vehicle incorrectly, such as which packs and accessories are fitted, that could be £500 to £1,000 difference,’ Thomas said.

‘So if one of your team is pricing and basing their valuation on a base model without any added accessories, your dealership is going to be offering considerably less than another dealer who identifies it correctly.’

62 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Alistair Horsburgh delivers his presentation to delegates attending the CitNOW workshop

T

he use of video is taking off throughout the automotive industry. That was the message from CitNOW’s chief executive Alistair Horsburgh at CDX16.

As the UK’s largest provider of personalised video presentation services to the automotive industry, the experts at CitNOW have seen firsthand the results their services deliver.

Horsburgh spoke of how dealers had utilised the pioneering technology, and the ensuing impact it had had on their business, with conversion rates of 50 per cent on new cars and 20 per cent in aftersales, after just two months of use of the company’s suite of products.

He gave tips on when to use video, what to focus on and the best methods of delivery, in order to give the customer the complete showroom experience from the convenience of their phone or tablet. A chance conversation with Honda UK’s marketing director about the mobile showroom experience is what started the idea for the company.

And since it made its first live video solution for Honda UK in 2008, Alistair CitNOW has grown Horsburgh to having 4,000 live installations around the world and 28 manufacturer programmes.

Horsburgh believes that a successful sales video is comprised

of three parts. The first, an introduction from the salesperson, is followed by an in-depth tour of the vehicle. The final section should be a signing off by the salesperson, informing the customer of what they will do next for them.

Despite it being a simple process, the use of videos can build trust towards the salesperson from the customer. By going over the vehicle in detail, or focusing on aspects of the vehicle the customer has inquired about, the buyer can see that it is as it has been described in the advert.

In aftersales, the use of video shows the customer what is being done to their car in the workshop, and why. Again, it promotes transparency as the customer can see the hard work that is being put into their vehicle.

During his workshop, Horsburgh showed an example of a successful video, before showing lists of both positive and negative testimonials from car buyers.

Unsurprisingly, the positive comments far outweighed the negatives – however, the latter were more directed at the salesperson’s recording technique than at the video service itself.

One customer had commented, ‘you could have given me longer than a couple of minutes’.

Horsburgh emphasised the importance of spending time making the videos, likening the video to a visit to the dealership. ‘How long would you spend with a customer if they were to walk in and inquire about a car?’ he asked. He finished by detailing the 12 stages of video relationship marketing, split between sales and aftersales.

GFORCES

Make sure ALL pages on your site are looking good T

Paul Hilton had plenty of facts and figures at his fingertips

echnology and market innovation expert, GForces, had a clear message at CDX16, and that was how a dealership’s website directly correlates to its car sales.

The headline sponsor of CDX16 is a leading provider of internet software and services and ever since it was established in 1999 has followed the progression of online services in relation to customers’ needs. In short, GForces aims to make the internet as profitable as possible.

Retail sales director of the company, Paul Hilton, hosted a workshop entitled ‘Browsers Or Buyers? Turn Your Website Into The Ultimate Conversion Tool’.

He covered topics including homepage design, how to take a user-first approach, looking beyond the homepage, conversion rates, and also what is on the horizon for dealer websites.

He spoke of the sheer number of sales generated directly from websites and the number of webpage views from mobile devices in comparison to desktops – figures that took many attendees by surprise.

While a strong and concise homepage design is important for first impressions, only seven per cent of consumers land on the homepage of large dealer groups. This makes up three per cent of overall page views on the site, and is attributed to Google

searches taking users to other pages on a site.

Therefore, it is important that dealers ensure that all pages on their site – especially the vehicle detail pages – are well presented and up-to-date.

As technology has progressed, the consumer’s level of expectation has evolved too. With so much stock online, it is now their choice of what to buy, when to buy it and where to buy it.

Similarly with research, there are so many tools available, that it is very much a consumer’s decision when to research, where to carry out research, and the device to use for research.

And, with more people than ever using their hand-held devices to search and shop online, it is important that dealers’ webpages function well on mobile devices.

Mobile content priorities are different from those on desktops and simply scaling websites down to mobile size doesn’t always work, he advised, adding that mobile devices don’t always need all of the same content as desktops.

The web marketing, social media and lead generation specialist also instructed attendees on how to advance their sites in order to improve the customer’s experience, and convert more clicks into web inquiries, calls and walk-ins.

An easy-to-use and on-trend website is more appealing than a neglected one.

JUDGESERVICE

The micro moments of truth that could lead to more sales THE road to purchase is complex but if a car dealership offers a positive experience to its customers, it can inspire many more to walk through the doors.

That was the message given at CDX16 by Dale Woodley, sales director of JudgeService, a research company helping more than 1,000 car dealers improve the experiences they deliver.

Woodley said that potential customers needed to be drawn in. He said: ‘Sixty-three per cent of people in the market are not entirely certain of the model of car they want to buy.

‘There is so much information out there where a consumer can do their research.

‘A typical consumer would search on Google, read reviews or watch videos on YouTube. But they would also head to car dealer websites. It is all about giving trust to the consumer so they would want to come and buy from you.’

Woodley also talked about micro-moments of truths, little pieces of information consumers search for on the internet to get answers quickly and effectively, such as dealer phone numbers.

He said dealers with minimal information on their websites could result in the large proportion of consumers already online going somewhere else to make a purchase.

He said: ‘Nearly a quarter of consumers visit

a dealer’s website before conducting a general inquiry. Data shows that some consumers research the type of model of car and expect to find reviews of that model on the dealer website as well. If you do not have those pieces of information they are after, you could argue they would go elsewhere.’

Woodley also talked about dealers posting reviews on their website and responding to reviews. Data shows 88 per cent of consumers trust reviews written by other buyers. He added: ‘Seventy-three per cent of consumers would buy from a dealer if they have had positive feedback on social media.’

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 63

DASHBOARD. CDX16: WORKSHOPS CAP HPI

Practical advice given on protecting against the unscrupulous PROTECTING a dealer’s reputation from unscrupulous individuals and managing the risk of cloned vehicles is vitally important.

Speaking at CDX16, Wendy Swaine, head of retail at provenance experts CAP HPI, explored the common issues dealers face and offered practical advice on how to safeguard reputations.

‘We offer protection for all used car buyers and dealers as part of the used car buying process,’ she said. ‘We work with the Retail Motor Industry and Trading Standards to make sure we give the best advice and our mission is to help protect the purchaser so you have the best data available.

‘The depth and breadth of data within the CAP HPI business is phenomenal. We hold more than two million mileage readings and have access to the Police National Computer, which updates our register of stolen vehicles on a daily basis, and the DVLA database.’

She warned that dealers and consumers would not know what vehicle they were buying if they didn’t do a history check first.

Swaine also talked about CAP HPI’s work with the RMI on banning mileage-correction companies, adding

that dealers should do their own investigation if a vehicle had a discrepancy.

She said: ‘In my opinion, there is no reason to adjust a mileage reading unless the odometer is broken and needs fixing.

‘We are working to ensure legislation is changed but it won’t be until May 2018 that we can ban these companies.’

Swaine said cloned vehicles were a real problem, and told dealers: ‘If you appraise the vehicles properly, you will spot the difference and make sure it doesn’t happen to you.’

Wendy Swaine

CAR KEYS

Clued-up customers mean web content has to be high standard A

s customers are increasingly using the internet to inform their decisions in the car market, it is more important than ever that dealers’ websites help them work out which models will suit them best.

Chris Smith, head of car comparison and research website CarKeys, told his CDX16 workshop audience how the modern consumer was using online information more than going to dealerships, and explained the value of informative and professional content.

‘Consumers are starting to research vehicles 1.7 to three months before purchase,’ he said.

‘Ninety-seven per cent of users are researching the vehicles beforehand, showing they are more informed before purchasing a vehicle, and 40 per cent are starting their search four months before purchase. At CarKeys, we’re working hand-inglove with dealerships rather than trying to

“

Instagram is the next big thing in social media.

64 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

put them out of business, as rather than taking customers away, we are informing them of the available options.’

Some websites are known to display links that have led to other forms of content that wasn’t what the user was looking for, and Smith emphasised that dealers must make sure their content is professional and relevant.

‘If someone gets to your website and they bounce away after finding out the content was nothing like what they had searched for, that could cause your website and company identity more harm than good.

‘The idea is to get consumers on your website or looking at some

form of content for more than 30 seconds and this will help increase your ranking online.’

Smith also pointed out that whatever content is published, some form of promotional material has to be placed to push consumers towards the business and help the number of inquiries.

With quality also key to making sure consumers can trust the business’s content, Smith said: ‘The more you can get good-quality content out there, the more links you will make to customers and the more inquiries you will get.

Whether you have a large team of marketers or just a couple, you must ensure that the content you produce is of a professional standard.’

Smith and the CarKeys team have seen the online mobile photo-sharing, video sharing and social networking service Instagram grow, and he believes it is the next step in dealer outreach.

‘The number of people that consume pictures of cars is growing significantly, and Instagram have realised that and have made their site more commercial and with better links to outside media. It is the next big thing in social media.’

Chris Smith

AUTO TRADER

Transparency seen as vital and valued in sales process THE main focus of Auto Trader insight director Nick King’s workshop was on how the consumer adoption of digital media has changed the way buyers interact with retailers, and he predicted how it will develop further as the next generation of car buyers – ‘millennials’ – enter the market.

With 30 years’ experience in digital marketing and a 10-year career at Auto Trader, King has seen first-hand how consumer behaviour has evolved alongside technology and the internet.

He stressed how whereas a decade ago car dealers would hold all the cards in the buying process, now consumers can look online and compare prices and products, and are no longer limited to what they can see in the showroom.

With a growth in mobile usage and data accessibility, car buyers are more aware than ever of what they’re looking for and expect complete transparency in adverts.

Transparency, therefore, is vital in the car sales process and highly valued by consumers. Many will only buy a car if they believe it is good value or that they will have a good experience.

King advised dealers to advertise their cars for 95 per cent to 105 per cent of their value in order to achieve the best turnover, as cars advertised too cheaply arouse suspicion in customers, while they may immediately discount the expensive models above their budget.

Another aspect of transparency is the vehicle’s description. With photographs now being of such high quality, the consumer will be able to tell within seconds whether the vehicle is as described. By accurately describing vehicles, dealers can build trust with the consumer and this leads to good testimonials being left.

‘Weaponising data’ was a phrase used by King.

To weaponise data is to use it to drive customers to your ads. He instructed attendees on how data will help them make smarter and more profitable decisions. Data can be analysed to establish which products are the most desired and which aren’t.

He concluded by reiterating how dealers can increase their profit margins by assessing the pricing strategy, considering desirability and increasing the speed of sale.

Nick King

CAR GURUS Sam Zales

Get smart – get into e-commerce market F

ollowing its launch in 2006, the Massachusetts-based car-buying site CarGurus has brought real-time local car listing updates to the online consumer, and following the founding of its UK-based site in December last year has become the only one to provide live market updates in the UK. In his workshop at CDX16, chief revenue officer Sam Zales explained how customers have shifted to the mobile market and how e-commerce is now more important than ever.

‘As we were co-founded by Langley Steinert, who also co-founded travel website TripAdvisor, we have a very similar model by making a transparent process for consumers,’ he said.

‘This is so that they can understand the price point of the vehicle and then see reviews of the dealers who offer that to see if other customers had a good experience dealing with them.

‘The customer can then compare with other dealers to see who offers the better consumer relationship.’ CarGurus has seen how the US market is currently behaving, and with the new market of younger and more technology-savvy consumers, Zales pointed out the importance of mobile technology awareness. ‘Most people you know will own a smartphone and the penetration from that market is becoming much bigger. Most importantly, the millennial market will make up 30 per

cent of car purchases in the next few years, and 93 per cent of those own a smartphone to make purchases and carry out research.

‘So, appealing to the e-commerce market and having a mobile-compatible format that is showing the same experience as a desktop should be becoming more integral to your site.’

Zales also explained how social media and multi-channel communication should be embraced. ‘As the market evolves, you’ve got to be where the consumers are, so being in all the channels is critical in staying up-to-date with consumer trends,’ he said.

‘Most of our dealers in the US have moved from traditional media over to digital and these newer formats offer a better opportunity to get in contact with consumers who are digitally enabled. It is important, though, to contact the consumer how they contacted you.

‘Text chat has been a phenomenal success for our providers, as it helps with after-hours services, and those text chats can be turned into leads to follow up on.’

“

As the market evolves, you’ve got to be where the consumers are.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 65

DASHBOARD. CDX16: WORKSHOPS LAWGISTICS

No reason to be legally caught out, says adviser

IVENDI

Mindsets ‘need to change with trends’ ‘C

Nona Bowkis had some good advice LEGAL adviser Nona Bowkis provided her audience with a valuable insight into how to stay on the right side of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and how to deal properly with customers.

Covering the hotly-discussed 30-day right to reject, she showed attendees ways to make sure that they weren’t taken advantage of.

On top of this, Bowkis, from the automotive legal firm Lawgistics, cleared up any discrepancies surrounding the status of a consumer or business user.

‘If a customer comes to you and uses the car every day as a taxi, he’s not a consumer he’s a business owner, and therefore not covered by the Consumer Rights Act,’ she said.

The 2015 Consumer Rights Act has caused many a headache for dealers who have had to combat false consumer claims and unwarranted rejections. Dealership owners need to be clued up on their rights when dealing with consumers, and Lawgistics is there to provide the very best service, Bowkis told them.

A good moral compass is something that she advised dealers to rely upon. If something goes wrong with a customer’s car, then the dealer can choose to fix it.

She pointed out that if something went wrong with a family member’s car they would want it fixed quickly and efficiently – something she hoped that dealers would do.

With legislation constantly changing, dealers need to be more clued up than ever before, and Bowkis pointed out that by making small changes to the way that they operate and by closely monitoring effective practice, there is no reason for them to be caught out.

Lawgistics provides specialist motor trade advice and support to those in the industry who may need help, and thanks to Bowkis, a workshop full of delegates walked away with a better understanding of how to keep on top of consumer law.

66 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

an your website replace your forecourt?’ was the question posed by iVendi chief executive James Tew during his workshop at CDX16.

And the answer – from a man who was certainly well qualified to discuss the subject – was an emphatic yes.

‘Your website can be doing a lot more for you than it is today,’ Tew told his audience, with a show of hands revealing a large number of independent dealers.

Looking at changing trends in consumer purchasing and how these can be applied to the automotive sector, he focused on the challenges to an online model.

These challenges, he said, include the existing dealer sales process, a perceived lack of control and the digitisation of all the components of the sales process.

‘You have got to change mindsets,’ Tew said.

That change includes bringing in people with the necessary skills to sell cars online.

‘I’m afraid using your existing sales team is going to

end up in failure,’ he said. Encouraging his audience to take control of the online process and offer part-exchange quotes over the phone rather than insisting on a visit to the dealership, Tew said: ‘Give the customers what they want, they will like you for it.’

Personalised videos and reviews were another recommendation from iVendi, which aims to make vehicle buying easier for the customer as well as vehicle finance simpler for everyone, too.

‘What’s going to be key going forward is to offer the consumer choice,’ Tew said.

‘Convenience is the single biggest winner.

Make your website more convenient and you will start selling cars online.’

And he stressed: ‘You have to start to make things happen yourselves. Don’t rely on other people to do it.’ iVendi, which develops e-commerce solutions designed to make vehicle selling easier for dealers, has offices in Manchester and Abergele, and its products are used by 7,000 dealers across the UK – a figure that’s tripled over the past year, following deals with car portals, dealer groups, manufacturers and finance providers.

James Tew

“

Give the customers what they want, they will like you for it.

FIRST RESPONSE

Proof positive about how social media can bring in custom T

he marketing value for dealers is something that shouldn’t be underestimated and there are now many ways for them to maximise their reach, delegates were told.

In his workshop session – entitled ‘Harnessing Value Through Social Proof’ – Ben Garside, marketing manager at First Response Finance, spoke at CDX16 about the different ideas dealers can use to increase their brand status.

He said: ‘Social proof is about social presence. It is social proving who you are and wanting people to be involved with what you do. It is a type of conformity and we tend to conform to people’s choices. We want what other people want.

‘If you want to get people coming to you, it is all down to branding and you want to be providing the right customer service.’

Garside talked about reviews, testimonials, awards and badges as a way of maximising a dealer’s social proof, but he added that it wasn’t only about what people see online.

He said: ‘It is not just about the online discussions. You want to make sure that when people are talking about their car-buying experience with their family and friends, they are talking really positively about you.

‘It is proving what a good company you are, and if you’re giving them the service they want, other people will want to go and follow suit.’

Garside said dealers should be looking to get

reviews from their customers as part of feedback, working on the bits of the business that are both good and bad and making changes where appropriate. He also said that dealers making the most of photos and utilising notable figures for particular car campaigns were prime examples of good social proof, but added there were still some common mistakes which could be avoided.

‘Getting a negative review is not a bad thing.

Too many people think that getting negative feedback is bad, but it isn’t if you are doing something about it. And if people are saying you are a good company in any way, shape or form, make sure you share it. A good example is a car dealer who posts a picture of the car, sales person and customer altogether on Facebook.

‘They tag the customer and it has done really well and utilised social proof because friends of the customer can see it and might want to go and visit, too. Make sure that you utilise as many mediums as possible.’

Use as many social media mediums as possible, said Ben Garside

“

Getting a negative review is not a bad thing.

PHOENIX

Blue, red or yellow? Do you work with colourful characters?

Jo Wright: ‘Good communication is key’

IN these times of chasing leads and maximising profits, it can be all too easy to forget that to get buyers to sign on the dotted line, you need your staff to be working at the best of their abilities – and the crux of that is arguably good communication.

The key to that, say Jo Wright and Adrian Marriott of Phoenix Training & Coaching, is understanding the different personality types that make up the workforce in your dealership.

To kick off the session, Wright and Marriott asked delegates to consider their own personality type – starting with whether they felt they were closer

to introversion or extraversion, and whether their decisions were mostly made through ‘thinking’ or ‘feeling’.

The attendees were then asked to consider the personality types of their own employees or bosses, based on a four-colour chart. ‘Cool blue’ represented cautious yet precise, deliberate and formal personalities, explained Wright, and are more likely to have an attitude of ‘let’s do it right’.

‘Fiery red’ personalities meanwhile are more determined, strong-willed, purposeful and direct – more likely to be a ‘let’s do it now’. ‘Earth green’ and ‘sunshine yellow’ make up the more

sociable, caring, encouraging and persuasive personalities – ‘let’s do it in a caring way’ and ‘let’s do it together’, respectively.

With that fresh in delegates’ minds, Wright and Marriott laid out just how to communicate with each group in the most effective way.

‘Fiery reds need to be given brief, bright headlines without any waffle, for example, while ‘Earth greens’ work best after a one-on-one conversation.’

Follow these steps, say Wright and Marriott, and you’ll be on your way to having a much more motivated and effective team.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 67

DASHBOARD. CDX16: USED CAR DEBATE

How tough is life as a used In the run-up to CDX16, Car Dealer Magazine held a debate with used car dealers to find out about the state of the market from different types of businesses. We were joined on the day by eight dealers plus Philip Nothard, Black Book editor at CAP HPI, and Fred Crawley, managing editor at Credit Today Magazine

LEO NELSON

UMESH SAMANI

NEIL SMITH

SCOTT SHILCOCK

PHILIP NOTHARD

Q

What effect is the new car boom having on used car sales?

Surprisingly, head of used car development at Jardine Motors Group Richard Hollis explained he believes it’s more of a problem for franchise dealers.

‘People come in for a used car and the business will convert them to new. For the side of the business that’s focused on used it makes the job more difficult,’ said Hollis.

‘We’re now seeing that volume from two or three years ago enter the market and the oneyear-old stuff is where it’s mostly suffering. At some point the manufacturers are going to have to pump more of their own money into propping up the PCPs.’ Imperial Car Supermarkets operations director Neil Smith added that they had fallen foul of this, but decided to exit. ‘We went into some late-plate stuff about 12 months ago and realised quite quickly that it was such a competitive market, that margins were very tight, so we got out of it very quickly,’ he said. ‘With Motorpoint out there who specialise in it and the franchises with their deals, there’s no room to move.

‘We stepped back to our two-to-three-year-old stock and that’s where we’ve stayed.’

Leo Nelson, marketing director of CarShop, argued that despite increases in new car uptake, there was still a market for three-year-old cars.

He said: ‘We’ve not traditionally been a nearlynew product. For us, the average is 36 months old. I think from a consumer perspective there’s still a market out there, and whether they’re just shopping based on price or whether it’s ownership of the vehicle versus renting it, I think there’s still those distinct customer groups.

‘Where a lot of manufacturers have done well is through their CRM efforts, through resoliciting customers and bringing them back into the cycle by encouraging them to get out of their cars maybe a little bit earlier.

‘It certainly hasn’t impacted on us noticeably this year. It’s been a great trading year.’

Martin Reynolds, of West Heath Garage,

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Our panel, from left to right: Leo Nelson, marketing director, CarShop; Umesh Samani, Specialist Cars, Stoke-on-Trent; Neil Smith, operations director at Imperial Car Supermarkets; Scott Shilcock, Prestige Diesels and Sports, Portsmouth; Philip Nothard, Black Book editor at CAP HPI; Rebecca Chaplin and explained that since getting out of selling new cars he had joined the nearly-new market without the manufacturer pressures or prices.

‘I’ve actually done the complete opposite and gone out sourcing pre-registered cars directly from manufacturers,’ he explained.

‘I’ve been there and done that in the franchise game, and now I’m going direct to the manufacturers and buying the pre-reg cars for substantially less than their own franchise dealers are able to get them. I’ll then retail them for less than the franchises can, they make no money and I’m doing fine, thanks very much.’

CAP HPI Black Book editor Philip Nothard said: ‘In terms of nearly new I think people are starting to look at it differently.

‘They’re aware that it’s a lower margin, they’re aware that it’s a faster turn product and they’re managing it slightly differently than they do with their two- and three-year-old stock,’ he said.

‘If you look at values, values have been under pressure in that nought-to-six- and nought-to-12-

month sector for some time – especially in the city car, because in terms of cash flow if you’re going to do a deal for numerous cars you choose a city car because it’s cheap and uses less cash to do the volumes in registrations.

‘Again, negative to that, that’s where the low payments are as well. So you’re up against the new deals that put it under pressure as well.’

Danny Miller, of Basildon Car Sales, said his biggest problem came from fierce competition in his area. As his is a relatively small outfit, not far from two car supermarkets, Miller said that he didn’t know what the future held for him.

‘We do a lot of specialist stuff, BMWs and Mercedes. Mercedes are giving them away for £299 a month. Then they’ve got so many of them coming back after the two years that there’s a flood of them at the auctions at the minute.

‘All of the Mercedes are making around two grand behind CAP at the minute. Before, the auctions would drip-feed them, which would

car dealer?

REBECCA CHAPLIN

JAMES BAGGOTT

FRED CRAWLEY

DANNY MILLER

TERRY SAUNDERS

RICHARD HOLLIS

MARTIN REYNOLDS

“

The biggest anxiety used car funders have is personal loans.

James Baggott from Car Dealer; Fred Crawley, managing editor, Credit Today; Danny Miller, Basildon Car Sales; Terry Saunders, head of procurement at Mike Brewer Motors; Richard Hollis, head of used car development at Jardine Motors Group and Martin Reynolds of West Heath Garage. push the price up. Now every day there seems to be a Mercedes sale of around 200 cars.’

Q

Who’s your biggest competitor when it comes to finance?

Scott Shilcock, owner of Prestige Diesels & Sports, explained that they were finding customers had already been approved on a lowinterest deal from their banks.

‘The biggest finance competitor we’ve got at the moment is the banks because everyone is getting letters through their door telling them that they can have sub-4.2 per cent APR and you’re having to do a lot of conversions to try to win the business over.

‘We use a stocking loan and it used to be the case that you had to give them “x” amount of business back. Because of FCA rules you know that they can’t do that any more but you know in the back of your mind that they’re expecting you to. You’re trying to put it through even if it’s at a

lower rate and you’re picking up the phone to say “Do you want to match this deal with the bank?”’

Fred Crawley added: ‘That’s the biggest anxiety used car funders have at the moment – personal loans. I was talking to a contact in the finance world who’s having kittens about the amount of competition that’s out there and growing. They’re saying they have to outdo the banks on service and that getting everything done on the forecourt should be enough to outdo them – but I don’t know if that’s too convincing in this room.’

However, Nelson put it down to a change in consumer confidence. He said: ‘I think there’s been a shift in consumer behaviour and people are now more predisposed to look for finance products online. There’s a confidence in using the internet to do that sort of thing.’

Q

How important are your websites?

Smith explained that because Imperial’s website ‘is all about keeping customers there and showing them everything they need to

know’, he admitted that they didn’t even really want customers to call them any more.

‘The only time we want them to ring us is if they want to know whether the car is still available and whether they can come and see it – because they’ve seen everything they need to see on the website.’

Nelson added: ‘It sounds a controversial thing to say but we’re caring less and less about leads.

Measuring the performance on leads and leads alone, I think, is probably quite damaging. The information both on Auto Trader and our own websites is improving so much that customers don’t need to call unless they want to know the car is still there.’

Shilcock said: ‘We upgraded our website about three weeks ago and we’ve had people not just inquire about cars but click to buy it, completed a whole finance agreement and asked if once that’s approved could they leave a deposit.

‘People don’t just buy a car, they buy from people they feel comfortable with and that’s how we sell cars. And that’s what you put into your own website and that’s where you want your traffic to go. But Auto Trader and CarGurus are obviously getting paid per click so they want to keep customers on their websites, so there’s a conflict there.’ n Watch the rest of the debate on Trade Plates TV at tradeplates.tv CarDealerMag.co.uk | 69

DASHBOARD. CDX16: AUTOCAR AWARDS

‘The very best the industry While the CDX stands were being taken down and delegates were heading home, a second major event was getting under way at Silverstone – a glittering celebration of everything automotive

A

utocar honoured the best cars and people in the automotive industry at the new Autocar Awards, in a glittering ceremony at the stunning Silverstone Wing after CDX. Carlos Tavares, chairman of the managing board of the PSA Group, was named the winner of the Issigonis Trophy in recognition of his work in transforming his brands’ range of cars.

The second major Autocar Award, the Sturmey Award, was presented to Simon Saunders, the founder and boss of British manufacturer Ariel, for his company’s innovative and determined approach to its work.

Ariel was a multiple winner on the night, with its go-anywhere sports car, the Nomad, being one of six cars to collect an award in recognition for earning a five-star rating in the respected and demanding Autocar road test.

The other cars that impressed the expert Autocar road testers and scored five-star ratings were the Ferrari 488 GTB, Ford Focus RS, McLaren 570S, Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and the Porsche Cayman GT4.

On the night the Readers’ Champion was also crowned, with the winner having emerged triumphant in an online poll on the Autocar website. Autocar’s panel of experts named their favourite 50 cars on sale, and then tens of thousands of autocar.co.uk readers voted to choose the overall winner.

It was a keenly fought contest, but the Lotus Elise was named as the ultimate winner.

Autocar also named Renault’s design director Laurens van den Acker as its Design Hero, while Ford’s vehicle engineering manager Tyrone Johnson was the inaugural winner of the Engineering Hero trophy.

British Porsche driver Nick Tandy was named the Motorsport Hero for his part in his team’s victory in the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours – the first Le Mans win for Porsche in 18 years.

Autocar also shone a light on the successful and booming UK car industry, with three individuals hailed as Autocar’s Outstanding UK Leaders. Mitsubishi’s UK managing director, Lance Bradley, was recognised for his bravery and vision in putting his company at the forefront 70 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

of the plug-in hybrid car market. MercedesBenz UK’s managing director and CEO, Gary Savage, won for his work making his company the UK’s fastest-growing premium brand, while Tony Whitehorn took home the award for his innovative approach as the president and CEO of Hyundai UK. The Innovation Award is another new addition for 2016, and the Audi SQ7 was the first to take the prize, winning for its pioneering 48V electric sub-system technology. The Lexus IS was crowned Autocar’s Used Car Hero, for offering a compelling combination of affordability and reliability.

Six cars were also named as Autocar’s GameChangers, with the Bentley Bentayga, BMW M2, Ford Focus RS, Jaguar XE, Vauxhall Astra and the Volvo XC90 all honoured.

The Mazda MX-5 took home the title of the best ‘real-world’ performance car from Autocar’s annual Handling Day event, while the Ferrari 488 GTB was named the best driver’s car at any price point.

Autocar editor Matt Burt said: ‘The new Autocar Awards celebrate the very best that the automotive industry has to offer, be that the cars on sale today or the people behind them.’

has to offer’

CONGRATULATIONS!

Laurens van den Acker, Renault head of design, left, was among those to pick up a gong

The full list of Autocar Award winners is as follows: Issigonis Trophy Carlos Tavares, PSA Group CEO Sturmey Award Simon Saunders, Ariel boss Design Hero Laurens van den Acker, Renault head of design Engineering Hero Tyrone Johnson, Ford Performance vehicle engineering manager Motorsport Hero Nick Tandy Autocar’s Outstanding UK Leaders Lance Bradley, Mitsubishi UK managing director; Gary Savage, Mercedes-Benz UK managing director and CEO; Tony Whitehorn, Hyundai UK president and CEO Innovation Award Audi SQ7 Autocar’s Used Car Hero Lexus IS 250/220 (2005-2012) Five-Star Cars Ariel Nomad; Ferrari 488 GTB; Ford Focus RS; McLaren 570S; Porsche 911 GT3 RS; Porsche Cayman GT4 Readers’ Champion Lotus Elise Britain’s Best Driver’s Car Ferrari 488 GTB Best Real-World Driver’s Car Mazda MX-5 Autocar’s Game-Changers Bentley Bentayga; BMW M2; Ford Focus RS; Jaguar XE; Vauxhall Astra; Volvo XC90 CarDealerMag.co.uk | 71

Tuesday, May 23, 2017 The Wing, Silverstone CDX17 will be bigger than ever, with a larger expo, plus more workshops and breakout sessions STAND BOOKINGS BEING TAKEN NOW!

To register your interest please call 023 9252 2434 or email events@blackballmedia.co.uk 72 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 73

FINANCE. Paragon Car Finance makes a move into motor homes PARAGON Car Finance is extending its product range this month with the addition of hire purchase finance packages for motor homes.

Loans from £10,000 to a maximum value of £100,000 will be available for new and used motor homes up to five years old at the start of the finance agreement, extending for terms of up to seven years.

According to the DVLA, there are currently over 225,000 motor homes on the UK’s roads, an increase of 30 per cent compared with 2010 as growing numbers opt for the freedom and flexibility of the open road.

Germany still leads the European motor home league, registering over 25,000 new vehicles a year, compared with over 15,000

Motorists ‘mystified’ over calculations for insurance Poll discovers more than half don’t understand factors behind policy prices

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he way motor insurance companies calculate premiums is a mystery for the majority of drivers, according to a new study.

Some 51 per cent of those quizzed do not understand what factors are taken into consideration for working out policy prices, the poll of 2,000 motorists commissioned by Co-op Insurance found.

More than two-fifths (43 per cent) view motor insurance as a ‘grudge purchase’, while 15 per cent said that they would not buy it if it was not a legal requirement.

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The research also revealed that 42 per cent of motorists do not realise their insurance provides cover if another driver claims personal injury compensation following an accident that is their fault.

Co-op Insurance is campaigning to improve transparency about how premiums are calculated.

It has released a video that states that the proportion of the total cost that goes towards theft or damage of a policyholder’s own car is just a fifth.

Around a quarter goes towards cases where a driver injures others, while a fifth is for repairing damage to other

IVENDI

Huge growth is seen in online option

in France and in excess of 13,000 in the UK. A typical motor home can cost between £30,000 and £100,000 making vehicle finance a useful funding option for many purchasers.

Motor home finance from Paragon Car Finance will be distributed via Paragon’s approved vehicle finance brokers and car dealers.

Julian Rance, head of Paragon Car Finance, right, said: ‘Motor homes are a high-value purchase and having access to competitive finance can be an important factor for buyers looking to manage their budget and control their costs. Our motor home finance products bring new competition to the market, helping dealers offer customers a broader choice of funding.’

people’s property. James Hillon, who is the products and pricing director at Co-op Insurance, said: ‘Motor insurance can be complex and the research has found that drivers are often confused by it. The new video aims to answer the age-old question drivers have about the cost of their premium in relation to the value of their vehicle.

‘At the Co-op, we want to keep communities safe, and we hope that by explaining insurance it will help drivers to understand the value they get and reduce the chances of them deciding to go without insurance.’

MORE than 65 per cent of the UK’s 200 largest dealer groups now offer a fully interactive motor finance option on their website, according to new research. iVendi, one of the market leaders in online motor finance, says that the percentage of dealers offering finance online has exploded in recent months and is estimated to have doubled from as recently as two years ago.

James Tew, CEO at iVendi, said: ‘Our view is very much that 2016 is the year when offering online motor finance became the norm for motor dealers rather than an exception.

‘It is no longer seen as an experimental part of the online dealer offering but is instead an essential part of their online customer proposition.’ Tew said that the amount of expertise that dealers now hold about online motor finance was also increasing rapidly.

‘Dealers are learning about what finance products work best for them online, how to present them and – crucially – how to integrate web-based and in-showroom finance so that it works in a seamless manner for customers.

‘They are also making use of a rapidly increasing selection of online tools to ensure that they are making the most of the opportunities that online finance represents.’

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Even if you’re the underdog, you can still become a winner

T

his year, Leicester City Football Club, also known as the Foxes, won the Premier League. As a Derby fan, this doesn’t bring me any joy, but neither does it bring me too much displeasure. You could call them a rival, but to me, they’re just another local team.

However, taking a step back from the football, there are a lot of things that co-exist in our business market.

Let’s take a look at the way things have panned out for Leicester City and how they have gained their title.

The competitive underdog: Even after Christmas, they were sitting at the top of the league, but Leicester City were still seen as the underdog. Their competition, the

Ben

Garside

‘The team had been TIME IS bought for a minuscule MONEY cost in comparison to the likes of Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea.’ press and even the public were always expecting them to slip up. They couldn’t grasp that a team that wasn’t in the usual top six (Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham or Liverpool) would be able to win the Premier League.

This worked in their favour, allowing them to focus on their own game rather than living up to the expectations of their past, having only ever won the second-tier League Title and League Cups in their history.

Training, development and people management: The team had been bought for a minuscule cost in comparison to the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. However, the team was

trained and developed correctly, and was allowed to make mistakes and express themselves.

Jamie Vardy was bought for just £1m from Fleetwood Town in 2012 and Leicester have just had a bid for £20m from Arsenal for him. Not every season has been great for Vardy, however.

In his first Premier League term, he found it hard to hit the back of the net, only scoring five times in 34 Premier League games.

Through the right management and team structure, though, he was able to flourish – in the 2015/16 season, he scored 24 league goals.

Team spirit, drive and enthusiasm: At any point in the season, a downward spiral could have happened, but it didn’t. The team spirit was visible throughout the season and across the whole team.

Even when players were injured, the team still

Turn over page for more finance stories looked vibrant, working together with a drive to win.

Moral: Throughout the year, you could see that the team wanted to win; they wanted to be on that pitch.

This is one thing that as a Derby fan I missed at certain times last season and this cost us our promotion.

If you want to succeed in business or football your employees/players need to be committed and happy.

So to round this up, if you want to win in the coming season, you can, even if you find yourselves labelled the underdog!

What you require is a good plan, strategy and structure. You also need a way of improving your team through training and development, and a management style that drives and motivates them to win.

Who is Ben Garside?

Ben is marketing manager for First Response Finance. Call him on 07817 518739 or email ben.garside@frfl.co.uk

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 75

DEALFINDER.

FINANCE. YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO . . .

HOT HATCHES HONDA CIVIC TYPE R

MERCEDES A250 AMG COMBINING sleek looks and clever engineering, the A250 AMG is a desirable car, and thanks to an attractive finance offer from the German brand can be bought for as little as £379 per month.

The finance offer, with an APR rate of 5.5 per cent and interest rate of 5.33 per cent, is available on the A250 AMG with a manual transmission and metallic paint. The customer makes a deposit of £3,696.37, complemented by a retailer deposit contribution of £443.43. Following this, the £379 monthly payments are due over 36 months and equate to £13,644 in total. By the end of the term, the driver will have paid £17,340.37 and should they wish to buy the vehicle outright an optional purchase payment of £15,075, plus a purchase activation fee of £10, is asked for.

This takes the total amount to £32,868.80 (including the dealer contribution). The OTR price is £29,575.

HONDA’S new Civic Type R is an attention-grabbing hot hatch that asks to be driven hard. And with 306bhp coursing through its front wheels, it performs accordingly.

The Japanese brand is currently offering the manual 2.0-litre VTEC Turbo Type R on an attractive, three-year finance deal with interest fixed at 5.77 per cent and an APR rate of 5.9 per cent.

A deposit of £7,171.62 starts the deal, followed by 36 monthly payments of £299, totalling £10,764.

So far, the customer will have paid £17,935.62 for the vehicle, which has an OTR price of £30,000.

At the end of this term, the driver will have two options. Return the vehicle for no fee, subject to terms and conditions, or make a final payment of £15,486.55 plus an option-to-purchase fee of £10.

If they choose the latter, they will have paid £33,432.17 for the car.

VW looks to attract more Golf sales with £2k contribution deal Offer until end of June applies across most of hatch family

V

olkswagen is extending the appeal of its Golf range of family hatchback models with a generous new £2,000 deposit contribution and 5.4 per cent APR for private customers who buy a new Golf via Volkswagen Financial Services from now until Thursday, June 30.

The offer applies across the Golf hatch family with the exception of Golf GTE, Golf GTI Clubsport, Golf GTI Clubsport S and e-Golf models. Depending on trim and model choice, the cars are available in three- or five-door versions, while the majority offer a choice of manual or automatic DSG gearboxes.

The range starts with the entry-level Golf S and rises in stages to the iconic Golf GTI and incomparable Golf R.

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by DAVE BROWN @CarDealerDave

Every Golf offers a high level of standard equipment and includes, for instance, as a minimum the Composition Media system, which boasts a 6.5-inch colour touchscreen, Bluetooth telephone and audio connection, car information display, DAB digital radio receiver and CD player.

The Volkswagen Golf also has a plethora of standard safety features, including ABS (anti-lock braking system); ESC (electronic stability control); and ASR (traction control).

The Golf S is available from £17,625 RRP OTR, and the Match Edition (from £20,690 RRP OTR) offers a variety of extra standard equipment

including parking sensors. Many models come with a choice of engines that all include energysaving BlueMotion Technology.

The range starts with the 1.0-litre TSI petrol engine that has an emissions figure of 99 g/km and combined fuel consumption of 65.7 mpg.

The petrol offering continues with a 1.4-litre TSI unit offering 125 PS, a 1.4 TSI with ACT cylinder deactivation and 150 PS on tap, and a 2.0-litre TSI engine that is available with outputs of 220 PS, 265 PS, 300 PS or 310 PS. The three diesel engines begin with a 1.6-litre TDI unit that has an output of 110 PS and a combined cycle figure from 70.6 mpg. The 2.0-litre TDI is available with either 150 PS or 184 PS. The combined fuel economy figures range from 58.9 mpg to 67.3 mpg.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

VOLKSWAGEN GOLF R THE 296bhp Golf R is the more sensible option of the trio, with its fourwheel-drive providing better grip on frequently wet British roads.

The Golf R is currently available on a three-year contract with interest at 5.35 per cent and an APR rate of 5.4 per cent A dealer deposit contribution of £2,000 bolsters that of the customer’s deposit of £3,168.50.

This is then followed by 35 monthly payments of £428.97, which adds up to £18,182.45 paid by the customer.

At the end of this term, the driver has the option of returning the vehicle for no fee, subject to terms and conditions However, if they wish to own the vehicle outright, an optional final payment of £14,751 plus an option-to-purchase fee of £10 is needed.

This takes the total amount paid by the customer to £32,943.45, which is only £1,258.45 more than the vehicle’s on-the-road price of £31,685.

STARTLINE

FLA

More employees to be taken on as boom in business is enjoyed

Steady growth in new business volumes, says FLA

A 35 PER CENT rise in the number of dealer groups adding Startline Motor Finance to their lender panel has been recorded so far in 2016, bringing the total to more than 50.

CEO Paul Burgess said It had been prompted by the unique niche the company was carving out, with an accent on high levels of dealer communication and customer service, meaning it will often look closely at applicants others might reject.

‘As a service-led lender, we tend to be more agile and dynamic than most, with customer service and underwriting teams that have a higher degree of independence than at most large finance businesses.

‘This means that we are set up to look closely at applications that others may have had automatically rejected by their online systems,’ he said.

Startline plans to expand its staffing levels over the coming months. Burgess said: ‘We need to recruit staff right across the business, including senior sales roles in the north of England and elsewhere.’

NEW figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association show that the point-of-sale consumer new car finance market grew 17 per cent by value and 12 per cent by volume in April, compared with the same month last year.

The percentage of private new car sales financed by FLA members through the point of sale reached 83.6 per cent in the 12 months to April, up from 82.7 per cent in the 12 months to March. The POS consumer used car finance market also reported further new business growth in April of nine per cent by value and eight per cent by volume.

Geraldine Kilkelly, head of research and chief economist at the FLA, said: Growth in new business volumes reported by the POS consumer car finance market was relatively steady in April.’

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 77

BIG MIKE.

My 100 worst test drive

1 His column is probably Car Dealer’s most popular feature – and for our 100th issue, we asked the brilliant Big Mike to do something a little bit special. We’ll let him take up the story...

W

hen Car Dealer’s editor asked me to recount my 100 most interesting experiences as a purveyor of fine previously-cherished automobiles, I don’t think he realised how ridiculous a suggestion it was.

If I had, you wouldn’t be able to lift this rag off the dealership coffee table.

After all, I do like to go on.

So, to rationalise, I gave him an idea of my own. To recount my favourite 10 test drive disaster tales and then just add a nought on the end. After all, adding a nought on the end is often what this game’s all about.

So, read on, dear reader, and thank you for consistently telling Mr B that you enjoy these wobbly old ramblings clipped from my years in the trade. Number 10 is more than just a test drive, it’s a confession, by the way. I’ve wanted to tell it before, but I’m still worried I’ll get my collar felt for my role in it. The editor, however, assures me my anonymity is safe. Except in Brum, because I really am big and I really am called Mike… not guilty, your honour.

ILLUSTRATIONS: SCARLETT JOSSE 78 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

The 100mph Hooligan

I’m often wary of going out for a blast in a sales car with young men. For some reason, they think they need to show off a bit, as if I’m going to judge them on their high-speed car handling ability.

Believe me lads, I’m not. And I’m too stocky and carsick to be chucked around the cabin. I remember one customer a few years ago who came in on the sniff of a Rover 220 Coupe Turbo (they were hot property back then, especially in Birmingham). Like most youngsters, he had good money, as we all know that as you get older and your income goes up, your disposable goes down. One of life’s cruel tricks. So despite the alarm bells sounding at the sight of his Global Hypercolour T-Shirt and baseball cap, I let him go for an accompanied drive.

It’s a little-known fact that the Rover 200 Turbo Coupe once held a few land speed records. I think it still holds the one for the Hagley Road at 4.35pm on a Wednesday afternoon. At one point, I saw three figures on the dial as we approached a bus stop, complete with its very own indicating bus. I’m ashamed to say I was sick. To be fair to the lad, he still bought it. The car, that is, though if he carried on driving like that, he would have bought it in a very different sense soon after.

2

The Nit-picking Knobhead

Every car dealer will tell you that there are some people to whom selling a car is just way, way too much hassle. I remember spending an entire afternoon back in the early Nineties in the company of a man dressed entirely in beige – all 50 shades of it – as he decided whether or not

to part with £1,795 against a 1987 Volvo 340.

He, quite frankly, couldn’t decide if it was right for him or not, and kept asking himself, loudly, if he could find a better one anywhere else.

My guess is he couldn’t, as I actually present my cars pretty well, but after agonising over the car for a good two hours (I left him to it…), he wandered over to the office and presented me with three sheets of A4 of all the things I’d need to rectify before the sale, after which he’d be ‘quite prepared’ to make me an offer. They

disasters

3 ranged from ‘front tyre brands don’t match’ to ‘Fruit sticker found on inside of rear passenger arm rest’. The first I found a bit petty but would never have let become a deal-breaker, the second was all the proof I needed that I couldn’t ever do business with the guy. This was reaffirmed when I flipped the page to learn it was ‘a bit too bright a shade of gold’. I politely told him I didn’t have the sales margin in the car to commit to his rectifications, but could I please keep his list to help me out. It’s still on my office wall.

The Blind Biddy

Down at my local, my nickname is Kojak. It’s not because I’m bald, but because I have, among my collection of useless artefacts, a slightly bent lollipop. One with the words ‘Stop’ and ‘Children’ written upon it.

I acquired the ’pop one November afternoon back in 1988, from the passenger seat of a metallic blue Metro Vanden Plas being driven by a lovely old lady called Betty. Having not driven for 12 years as ‘I didn’t have to until he went and popped his clogs’, Betty had decided to buy herself a little runaround to last her through her twilight years. One thing she hadn’t done, though, was bother to treat herself to any glasses, and as we set off through the backstreets of leafy Edgbaston, it soon became apparent that she wasn’t one for hazard perception.

Taking her out on a test drive at school kicking-out time, then, was asking for trouble.

And trouble it was as we approached a school crossing, complete with fluorescent yellow lollipop lady embarking upon the task of getting some small people safely home. Betty didn’t see her, and to make matters worse, the lollipop lady had assumed, as Betty was going so slowly, that she was stopping. I had to take things into my own hands, and as we passed the still-moving lollipop lady at a speed that narrowly missed her toes with the front tyres, but would guarantee to squash her with the back ones, all I could do was grab her by her lolly stick and bat her backwards onto the pavement with the round end.

It wasn’t until we got back to the lot, with me a quivering wreck, that I realised I was still holding it.

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BIG MIKE. MY 100 WORST TEST DRIVE DISASTERS

4

The Slapdash Slowcoach

When you’re travelling along a congested but moving innercity ring road, it’s always reassuring when the person in charge of the car in which you’re travelling is looking where he’s going. On one occasion in the early 1990s, I was a passenger in a Nissan Sunny I had for sale, being driven down Smallbrook Queensway by a bloke who looked everywhere but. I recall, quite clearly, how he drove onto a roundabout whilst looking out of the passenger window, completely oblivious to what was approaching from the right (I recall it being a skip truck). The moment at which I insisted on taking over at the wheel came, though, as we approached a queue of brakelights at 40mph, while his nibs was gawping out of the side window and talking about cricket. My last-minute intervention with the handbrake, and by yanking the wheel across to the left to steer us up a grass verge rather than into the arse of a tipper lorry, is one of the reasons I’m still alive today…

5

The Pickled P*sshead

I’m normally not a bad judge of character, but, like everyone, my judgment can be a bit clouded by a few measures of the tan stuff. So when, a couple of years ago, a huge bloke came onto my lot a fortnight before Christmas, just after I’d been for my usual festive luncheon with the funny handshake brigade, I was already in the passenger seat before I realised he was as half-cut as I was. What ensued was a slalom tour of the northern suburbs of Birmingham in a V8 Range Rover, which ended up in the driveway of a pleasant detached with the bonnet buried in a privet hedge.

The driveway, incidentally, was the owner’s, and it fell to me to get a cab home, as no sooner had we parked up than he got four grand out of his jacket pocket and insisted he wanted to keep the Rangie. I’ve no idea if he remembered the following morning, but by then I’d already posted the V5…

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BIG MIKE. MY 100 WORST TEST DRIVE DISASTERS

6

The Absolute Beginner

Going back to one of the most frightening experiences earlier on in my career, I had a cheap Mini 1000 part-exer for sale back in the late Seventies, which attracted all sorts of attention from younger motorists, as you’d no doubt expect.

One of them was a young lad in his first year at Birmingham University, as scruffy, opinionated and infragrant as you’d expect.

Eyeing up the Mini as a potential first car, he wandered over and asked if he ‘could take it for a spin, mate’. Obviously I didn’t trust the little scrote, so I grabbed my trilby and squeezed into the passenger seat next to him.

We’d lurched as far as the edge of the lot before I asked him to kill the ignition, and he didn’t know how.

Turned out he’d never once been behind the wheel of a car in his life… And I certainly wasn’t prepared to be his first victim.

7

The Terrifying Tailgater

Some clichés are absolutely true, and this was no more apparent than in the 1990s, whenever I had a six-pot BMW in stock. Don’t get me wrong. I love a nice Beemer, and those mid- to late-Eighties models that were my premium stock back in those days were truly lovely cars. Unfortunately, they also tended to attract a ‘particular’ type of person, perhaps best summed up as aggressive.

Or alternatively as ‘a pr***’.

On one occasion, I had a guy in his thirties 82 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

turn up for a test drive in an M3-bodykitted 325i and proceed to drive in a terrifyingly forceful manner, culminating in an incident at some traffic lights in Sparkbrook. Having spent the past two miles about an inch from the rear bumper of a white Transit, it all came to a head when not just one, but both, doors of the Transit opened and both driver and passenger got out brandishing garden tools.

I was a younger and leaner man back then, and not wanting to end up with my head on a pitchfork, I leaned across, tore the keys out of the ignition and legged it. It took me a good half-hour to summon up the courage to walk back to the BMW, and I was quite relieved to find there was no blood all over it…

8

The Spatially Special

Some people should never be let loose behind the wheel of a car, to the point where I find it impossible to believe they’ve ever been awarded the honour of a driving licence. The shortest test drive I ever went on (if you discount the aforementioned student that never even got off the lot) was a grand total of half a mile, or even just under. It ended in a municipal flowerbed, after taking out a bench and half a bus stop. The car in question was a Fiat Uno, and the driver a middle-aged lady who declared it ‘too big and quick’ for her to handle as the police were calming her down with a cup of tea (I was beyond calming down, as the no-claims bonus on my trade policy was in tatters). In fairness, if I’d bothered to take a look at the bruised and battered Austin A35 that she’d turned up in for the viewing, I might have realised that a ‘modern’ car may have run away with her, but it baffles me to this day how it all actually happened – the road from my car lot to the bus stop is a dead straight dual carriageway with perfect visbility….

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BIG MIKE. MY 100 WORST TEST DRIVE DISASTERS

9

The Kerb Crawler

I was admiring a couple of Mk 3 Capris at a local classic car show the other day, only to be reminded of an experience back in the summer of 1987, where I took a bloke out on a demo with a 2.8 Injection Special.

Typical of a single bloke in his Twenties, the driver had something of an eye for the ladies. And a mouth for them, too.

After less than 15 minutes, we’d attracted the death stares of several boyfriends as he pipped the horn at anything with a nice bum, and quite a few without, including one long-haired creature in skinny jeans that, when inspected in the rear-view, quite clearly had a beard.

Occasionally, he’d even slow to a crawl and ask them, quite forwardly, to ‘show us yer tits’ on the basis (he explained) that if you didn’t ask, you didn’t get.

Anyway, we didn’t get. But what we did get, rather annoyingly, was an entire bag of ketchup-smeared chips through the window and right into my lap. Birmingham girls are classy like that.

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10

The Perfect Punter (that wasn’t)

And now for my piece de resistance…

As the old proverb goes, if something is too good to be true, it probably is. But car dealers can’t help themselves when there’s a promise of an easy buck (come on, tell me you’re not the same…) so it’ll come as no surprise to any of you that I got well and truly sucked into this one; quite probably the most terrifying experience of my entire career.

I think it was about 1995 or 1996, and like many dealers I had a little plinth at the front of the lot on which I’d park my ‘Car of the Week’. On this particular occasion, COTW was a G-plate Vauxhall Carlton GSi 3000 in solid red (weren’t they all?) and it was an incredibly lovely car, as well as a bloody quick one. At £7,995 it was both the most expensive car I had, and also a bloody bargain.

Having spent ages cleaning and detailing it, it didn’t come as a huge surprise to me when a youngish chap turned up, gave it the once-over and offered to buy it there and then, without even test-driving it. He’d been looking for a GSi for ages, he said, and as soon as he saw mine

advertised in the local rag he knew he’d end up with it – after all it was a low-mileage example in immaculate condition, with a full MoT and service history. He’d clearly done his homework.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘When would you like to come and pick it up?’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I was thinking that if we nipped down to the bank in it, I could get you the money here and now, fill in the V5 and drive it home.’

He looked good for it – he was clean, wellgroomed, articulate and friendly – so I saw no reason not to trust him to go through with the deal. Plus, if he at least drove it to the bank, he’d have a proper test drive, and thus there’d be less of a comeback on me if he did subsequently turn out to be a screamer.

Driving to the bank, then, we had a bit of

a general chit-chat. He worked in the finance sector, he told me, and was also a fan of high performance rear-wheel-drive cars, as when you spend your days handling large amounts of other people’s money, it was fun to just jump in a car and put your foot down once in a while…

He then did that, and grinned as the Carlton picked up pace.

I first got the hint that something was a little odd, though, when he slowed down to a near crawl not far from the bank.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Ah, well, don’t want to be too early,’ he said, cryptically. Just as he did, an enormous mobile phone in his pocket rang three times, and he nailed the pedal to the metal, slewing sideways into the layby outside the bank.

‘What the….?’ was as far as I got, before two bulky blokes in balaclavas came charging out of the entrance with sports bags, threw open the boot, chucked them in and then dived into the back of the car.

To the echo of distant sirens, we drove south out of the city, laying down a trail of rubber as the big old Vauxhall fishtailed out of each roundabout.

‘Sorry about this,’ said one of the guys in the back, as he pulled a slightly damp cloth across my mouth.

‘What the…?’ was again as far as I got.

Thankfully, I remember little else.

I woke up, blindfolded, somewhere in the Lickey Hills south of Brum, and I never saw the Carlton, or its driver, again. Though I did see

someone who looked very similar driving a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth on a Crimewatch reconstruction.

I didn’t dial in, though, because I couldn’t be certain. Besides, there was the envelope.

When I finally came to, I found it tucked into my jacket with ‘taxi fare’ written on the front.

On the back, scribbled no doubt in the hand of someone not involved directly in the robbery, were the words ‘Cheers for the car, mate. Honour among thieves – these notes are clean’. And there were eight grand’s worth in there…

So with £8k’s worth of laundered dirty money in my sheepskin, did I allow my conscience to guide me and do the right thing?

Course I did. And I’ll let you decide what that was… [CD] CarDealerMag.co.uk | 85

FORECOURT.

Nissan GT-R Nissan GB GT-R product manager James Oliver explains just why the new model is so special What makes MY17 such an important development?

It’s the first time that the car has seen structural changes since the R35 was launched, so there are changes to the bodyshell under the skin.

Even before you get to cars at the upper end of the line-up, all the way through from the entry grade, the bodyshell is stiffer, particularly around the front A-pillar area which tightens up the shell and aids a crisper turn-in on the car. It’s much more than bumpers and a retrim, it’s very much re-engineered from the inside.

Where would you say that the most significant improvements have come?

It genuinely has improved in terms of everyday usability and comfort and refinement. I think that the car is more precise to drive as well, with the additional rigidity in the bodyshell and the development on the A- and C-pillars meaning that those big fat tyres spend more time squashed into the ground.

The steering rack is revised, so you get a sharper turn-in performance as well. The improved stability at speed is partly due to

electronics, but the majority is through airflow management and aerodynamic stability.

The low speed performance seems much improved, too.

The GT-R has always been desperately quick, monstrously capable on a race circuit and cross-country, but where it’s grated in the past – literally – is at low-speed manoeuvring and tight corners. It felt like the differential was trying to eat itself. It wasn’t – that was just a characteristic of the way the transmission was set – but that’s been improved massively, so on this car, tight parking and turning situations at walking pace will see a great improvement.

What they’ve managed to do through the transmission development is to make the up and down shifts smoother so that they can allow more power at lower speeds and in lower gears.

How important is the GT-R to Nissan?

GT-R is massively important for Nissan. You’ve only got to look at the history, from the buzz around the launch of the R35 in 2007 through the successive model year developments. This

has been the most significant upgrade the car has seen since. If it wasn’t important, we wouldn’t be pouring time, effort and resources into the development of the car.

How do you tie in the supercar performance of the GT-R with the more ‘everyday’ nature of the Nissan range?

Fundamentally, you’ve got customers who’ll buy for different reasons and they’ll be interested in different things. Some of them will need a car that is practical, economical, get the kids in, go and do the shopping and so on, and that’s where our mass-market range fits.

For people buying into those cars, GT-R gives them a taste of the performance arm of the brand. GT-R is the halo.

From the other end, how do you appeal directly to a sports car customer when you have the rest of the Nissan showroom around it?

I think those customers just look at what’s under the halo. I think that the way we position that, the experience they get, should be on a par with what they’d experience at other high-power, high-brand-value competitors.

THE KNOWLEDGE

Model: Price: Engine:

Nissan GT-R £79,995 3.8-litre, six-cylinder petrol Power: 562hp, 637Nm Max speed: 196mph 0-60mph: 2.7 seconds Economy: 23.9mpg (combined) Emissions: 275g/km

TARGET BUYERS: Later-life professionals who want to be the fastest thing out there.

THE RIVALS: Porsche 911, Mercedes-AMG GT, BMW M6

KEY SELLING POINTS: 1. Improved long-distance credentials 2. Refined for around-town use 3. You’ll never lose a traffic light grand prix

DEAL CLINCHER:

You can’t go faster for the money in a four-seat car.

86 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

on test

Andrew Evans finds the interior of the new Nissan GT-R is WHAT IS IT? This is the latest generation of the Nissan GT-R. No, really, although you’ll have to put it next to a previous-generation model to spot any kind of difference. Dubbed the ‘MY17’, Nissan says it’s the most significant update to the GT-R since it was launched in 2007 and, under the skin at least, there are a lot of tiny changes that add up to a fair upgrade.

WHAT’S UNDER THE BONNET? You’ll still find that 3.8-litre V6 twin turbo that every GT-R to date has used, but of course the power figures have been massaged upwards lightly. There’s now 562hp available – 20hp more than previously. This is attached to a

six-speed dual-clutch gearbox, driving the incredibly intelligent ‘ATTESA’ four-wheel-drive system that’s been an intrinsic part of the GT-R.

WHAT’S THE SPEC LIKE? The GT-R has never been short of kit, and though the new car comes in four grades – Pure, Recaro, Prestige and Track Edition – you won’t miss out on

MORE RIGID BODY

The GT-R gets structural updates for the first time

TITANIUM EXHAUST

Adds a special button for quietness while cruising or in built-up areas

V-MOTION GRILLE

Helps to reduce drag and aid cooling

lacking the ‘wow’ factor, but it still performs like none of its rivals anything if you go for the entry-level car. Hiroshi Tamura, the chief product specialist of the Nissan GT-R, comments that this time round the team has been looking to make the GT-R a more mature car, citing the old Skyline GT-R M-Spec as a basis. This gives the MY17 a slightly more comfort-orientated focus. Every GT-R gets a new titanium exhaust system, with a special button for making it quieter when you start it up, and noise-cancellation technology in the cabin.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE? At normal road speeds, the GT-R is very ordinary.

This is actually a good thing, and slightly surprising – no part of the GT-R’s driving manners suggest that you’re sitting on top of a vehicle

that’s a mere blink of an eye from double the speed limit. That means the GT-R isn’t a stressful car to drive at any speed, and this is a car you can drive huge distances without tiring. The updates have made the GT-R more stable at 300km/h than the original car was at 240km/h. It’s no hassle at manouevring speeds either, although despite the gearbox’s software update there’s still a bit of a shunt on the 2nd to 1st downshift. Three-point turns are not the wearing experience that they used to be. Get on to a track and the GT-R is still the incredibly fast weapon it’s always been.

WHAT DO THE PRESS THINK? AutoExpress comments of the GT-R that ‘nothing gives you as much bang for your buck’, while Evo

notes that ‘the new GT-R feels more polished and easier to live with’.

WHAT DO WE THINK? We’re not totally sure that luxury and prestige supercar buyers are going to look on the new GT-R interior with much desire. It’s nicer than the old car, but there’s not the same immediate wow factor. However, it leaves all rivals standing when it comes to any kind of performance. The GT-R builds speed almost inexorably to some really ridiculous numbers. Overtaking is a mere trifle, with the challenge being to slow it down afterwards. The Brembo brakes are good, even with repeated hard stops at track speeds. Day to day, it’s a much-improved car.

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FORECOURT. THE RIDE

ENGINE

Reduced body roll at high speeds and a more comfortable ride on rougher terrain

The 429bhp V8 can propel the 2,405kg car to 60mph in under five seconds

WHEELS

Alloy wheels up to 22in in diameter can be specified on the SQ7

Audi SQ7

Laura Thomson goes for a spin in this head-turning SUV and finds much to enjoy – especially a practically absent turbo lag WHAT IS IT? The SQ7 is the high-performance, high-price version of Audi’s awardwinning Q7 model. Boasting a 429bhp V8, it claims to be the most powerful diesel SUV on the market.

The SQ7 is the first S model to feature in the Q7 line-up and only Audi’s second venture into S-badged SUVs. It is also the first production car to feature an electrically powered compressor (EPC), which promises to abolish any turbo lag.

WHAT’S UNDER THE BONNET? At 1,000rpm the SQ7’s 4.0-litre V8 TDI produces 900Nm of torque, before peak power of 429bhp arrives at 3,750rpm. Featuring alongside its two conventional turbos, the aforementioned EPC is powered by a 48-volt electrical subsystem.

WHAT’S THE SPEC LIKE? An impressive standard spec list and an array of safety equipment feature in the spacious seven-seater, with 88 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

no fewer than 24 driver-assistance systems. These include a pre-sense city emergency braking system and adaptive cruise control with trafficjam assist. Despite the SQ7’s sporty credentials, comfort within the cabin is exceptional, with plentiful legroom. The MMI navigation system takes pride of place in the centre of the dash, while the virtual cockpit is behind the steering wheel. The cleverly designed 12.3-inch display presents all required information in an easy-to-read, interactive format.

A head-up display can be added as an option. Buyers have the choice between two sound systems. Alloy wheels up to 22in in diameter can also be specified, and 12 exterior paint options are offered.

is only a slight qualm noticeable at lower speeds. While quiet and refined on motorways, the SQ7 comes into its own on tougher terrain thanks to its electromechanical active roll stabilisation, which is an optional addition.

WHAT DO THE PRESS THINK?

Car Enthusiast says: ‘It’s not perfect and it’s not cheap, but even if you’re an extreme anti-SUV car nut, you’ll have a hard time convincing yourself the SQ7 is anything other than exceptionally good.’

WHAT DO WE THINK?

There’s no question about it. The SQ7 is a brilliantly fun car to drive, with incredible power available throughout WHAT’S IT LIKE TO the revs and impressive rough terrain DRIVE? capabilities. Taking into account the Virtually no turbo lag is felt when model’s starting price just shy of pulling away, thanks to the impressive £71,000, it’s unlikely to sell in high EPC. A slight delay can be felt, numbers. However, buyers will find however, as the eight-speed tiptronic themselves the centre of attention at gearbox selects and shifts, but this the wheel of this head-turner.

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Audi SQ7 Price: £70,970 Engine: 4.0-litre V8 TDI

Quattro Power: 429bhp Max speed: 155mph 0-60mph: 4.9 seconds MPG (combined): 39.2 Emissions: 190g/km

TARGET BUYERS: Sports car enthusiasts who need something to drive the children to school in.

THE RIVALS: BMW X5 M50d, Range Rover Sport, Porsche Cayenne S Diesel

KEY SELLING POINTS: 1 Luxurious and spacious interior 2 Impressive host of spec 3 Futuristic virtual cockpit

DEAL CLINCHER: Audi has succeeded in abolishing turbo lag in the 2,405kg SUV with an innovative electrically-powered compressor.

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FORECOURT.

Audi A3 STYLING

Front and rear lights have had subtle revisions

ENGINE

New 1.0-litre unit replaces the outgoing car’s 1.2

EMISSIONS

Running costs should be kept down thanks to efficient engine

on test

The German premium small hatch may have downsized its engine, but that’s not to

WHAT IS IT? The A3 has always been – and still remains – a premium small hatch. With room enough for five and their luggage, it’s bigger than you might think. Plus, with the ability to choose between standard hatch and sportback styles, you can have even more room should you want it.

WHAT’S UNDER THE BONNET? Our test car featured Audi’s new 1.0-litre turbocharged engine, which produces 113bhp and 200Nm. Despite its small capacity, the A3 can still reach 60mph in 9.5 seconds, which will be quick enough for most drivers. Thanks to that smaller size, it returns an impressive 62.8mpg and emits just 104g of CO2 per kilometre.

90 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Driven through a seven-speed automatic gearbox, it’s much more capable on the motorway than its size would lead you to believe.

WHAT’S THE SPEC LIKE? There have been a few updates in here over the outgoing model. The biggest addition is the optional Virtual Cockpit, which places navigation and all key information into the car’s main instrument binnacle.

We’ve seen it already in the TT and it’s a very good system, providing clear readouts to the driver.

The entire cabin has a solid feel to it – something we’ve come to expect from Audis.

A SIM card-based system is now included too, allowing drivers to access apps while on the move. It’s a box that will undoubtedly be ticked by most customers.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE? As a front-wheel-drive hatch with a limited power

Jack Evans talks about technology with Audi electronic systems engineer Nico Moschl Were there any electrical changes you had to make to the car to fit the new Virtual Cockpit?

The architecture of the car hasn’t changed that much. We have introduced a higher level of assistant systems through a modular deployment.

The new control operation system that we’ve brought in with the Virtual Cockpit means that the screen is now divided into ‘pockets’ to make navigating it easier than before. The advantage of this is that it’s not vertically navigated and easier for drivers to use. It can also be controlled through the multifunction keys on the steering wheel. As soon as we put a system like this into a car, we need to make sure that there are keys that easily control them.

This system makes it more like a smartphone to use, too. It’s the same infotainment that you may have seen in the TT and A4.

What’s the benefit of the Virtual Cockpit?

The advantages of this system is that the driver

can now get to where he wants to be in the system in a matter of clicks.

Have you had any feedback regarding the system?

We tell our users that you have to get used to the Virtual Cockpit in the beginning. Users understand the philosophy very quickly after using it. They’ve been positively impressed with how easy it is to use, because many of the car’s functions have to be handled by the system.

The next-generation system will be simplified, which will make things even easier for drivers to find information. We’ll look to make a display that is even less loaded with information and is clearer still.

Do you think a lot of A3s will be sold with this system?

It is certainly one of the big strategic issues we face. We need to continue the development to make sure that future models have the very best system, although we predict that a vast majority

of drivers will choose to have the Virtual Cockpit in their car. We’ll keep this development up to make sure that our systems are still innovative and up to date.

Can you explain the reason for installing the 1.0-litre engine in this generation A3?

One of the reasons is that we wanted to bring an upgrade to the A3, and this is just one way of extending the appeal of the car. It replaces the 1.2-litre engine that was in the previous A3, and it’s an entry-level unit, so of course there was demand for it.

It produces 6g/km CO2 less than the older engine, too.

Do you see it being harder for there to be growth with A3 with the advent of SUVs in this segment?

Not really. We believe that we offer what the customer wants. We have many derivatives of the A3, and a wide range of products that the buyer wants.

THE KNOWLEDGE

Model: Audi A3 Price: £19,000 (estimated) Engine: 1.0-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol Power: 113bhp Max speed: 128mph 0-60mph: 9.5 seconds Economy: 62.8mpg Emissions: 104g/km

say it’s a boring car, reports Jack Evans output, the A3 was never going to set pulses racing. That said, it isn’t a boring car to pilot.

Down sweeping country lanes there’s plenty of grip and minimal body roll, which means it’s quite easy to find a rhythm. That 1.0-litre engine isn’t bad either, giving plenty of low-down shove that makes the car relaxing to drive around town.

The car’s ride manages a good balance between comfort and sportiness, and it settles down well on the motorway thanks to its seven-speed automatic gearbox linked to an engine that’s happy to sit at much lower revs than you’d think.

WHAT DO THE PRESS THINK? Autocar said: ‘Audi’s strong-selling A3 has always impressed with an alluring combination of

style, quality, dynamics and refinement. And that continues to be the case with this lightly facelifted version.’

WHAT DO WE THINK? Although lightly breathed on to keep it up to date, this latest A3 is still a quality product. With the addition of the 1.0-litre engine it’ll be more appealing to those looking to keep running costs at a minimum. Inside, it’s an incredibly pleasant place to be, while the drive that the car offers is keen and sporty enough for most drivers.

There’s no doubt in our minds that an all-new version will be along in a year or so, but for now the A3 remains one of the key competitors in the premium-hatch market.

TARGET BUYERS: Young families looking for lots of space in a compact package.

THE RIVALS:

BMW 1-Series, Volkswagen Golf, Mercedes A-Class

KEY SELLING POINTS: 1. Decent range of engines and specifications 2. Excellent fit and finish on the inside and outside 3. New ‘Virtual Cockpit’ system now available

DEAL CLINCHER:

Updated levels of technology mean the A3 can still hold its own against rivals.

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FORECOURT. CONVERTIBLE

LOOKS

The roof is easy to collapse by hand and goes back into place just as quickly

Design cues come from the original 124, giving it a retro look with a modern twist

ENGINE

Fiat 124 Spider

A petrol 1.4-litre turbo, currently only available with a manual gearbox

Roaring round the hills of Italy, Rebecca Chaplin finds that this new turbocharged convertible roadster is just the job WHAT IS IT? It’s a stylish two-seater convertible sports car that will appeal to a weekend driver who wants to use their car during the week, too. The 124 is based on the MX-5 and it makes a lot of sense to base it on the best-selling roadster of all time, although this does mean it’s facing some tough comparisons. It’s not the fastest or loudest, but it does offer some Italian flair in this segment.

WHAT’S UNDER THE BONNET? The 124 Spider gets a turbocharged 1.4-litre petrol engine as the only option. At the moment, it’s also only available with a six-speed manual gearbox. However, Fiat has said an auto will be joining the line-up. It produces 138bhp and maximum torque is 240Nm at 2,250rpm.

WHAT’S THE SPEC LIKE? It does feel like Fiat has brought up the standard from the MX-5.

That said, it’s an undeniably Mazda 92 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

interior apart from the Fiat steering wheel and sportier seats. In typical Italian style, the spec levels are called Classica, Lusso and Lusso Plus. Entrylevel spec is good, offering buyers air conditioning, leather-trimmed interior, cruise control, 16-inch alloys, Bluetooth and USB.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE? The engine is never going to win any performance awards, but it is capable. Because of the turbo, the 124 doesn’t get a particularly racy note and means it’s not as responsive as you might like. Climbing steep hills in Italy, torque was lacking in the lower revs and it punished you for not being spot-on with your gear changes. However, the set-up of the suspension and handling is just right, and the car as an overall offering does feel smooth and enjoyable.

WHAT DO THE PRESS THINK? Auto Express said: ‘There’s no

denying Fiat has built a terrific sports car that takes all the MX-5’s good points and adds a certain Italian flair.’

Pistonheads said: ‘An impressive opening act . . . it’s not a hairychested sports car, but then nor was the original. It is, however, stylish, decent to drive and another affordable rear-wheel-drive car.’

WHAT DO WE THINK? If you take the Fiat 124 Spider on its own, it’s an impressive car and enjoyable to drive, although it is never going to win any racing titles. However, cost-conscious customers might prefer the cheaper and extremely competent MX-5.

Those choosing the 124 will most likely be looking for the exclusivity and slightly higher-quality feel that comes with this car. If your priority is performance, though, it’s worth holding out for the Abarth 124 Spider. However, we’ll reserve judgment on whether it’s worth the extra money until we’ve driven it later this year.

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Price: Engine:

Power: Max speed: 0-60mph: Economy: Emissions:

Fiat 124 Spider £19,545 1.4-litre MultiAir petrol 138bhp 134mph 7.5secs 44.1mpg 148g/km

TARGET BUYERS: Buyers who loved the MGF but have been lacking the option of a sporty, affordable roadster since production stopped.

THE RIVALS: Mazda MX-5, Toyota GT-86

KEY SELLING POINTS: 1. Italian design 2. Affordable roadster 3. Comfortable handling

DEAL CLINCHER: The 124 offers a great combination of Italian design and fun driving.

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FORECOURT. INTERIOR

Although dull and noisy, the cabin of the Baleno is capacious

ENGINE

The Baleno is only the second model to feature Suzuki’s Boosterjet technology

Suzuki Baleno

This new entry to the B segment has much to commend it, finds Laura Thomson, even if it doesn’t have an obvious edge WHAT IS IT? A stylish, large B-segment hatchback and with a total weight of under 935kg, the Baleno is significantly lighter than competing models, with an interior length of 2.64m and a 320-litre boot capacity. It comes in the lower-spec SZ-T grade, with a 1.0-litre Boosterjet engine, or the more comprehensive SZ5 grade with the 1.0-litre Boosterjet or a 1.2-litre Dualjet + Smart Hybrid Vehicle System.

WHAT’S UNDER THE BONNET? Suzuki’s Boosterjet technology allows it to offer the same level of power and torque as a much larger (1.8-litre) naturally-aspirated engine.

Its frugal 1.0-litre, three-cylinder engine produces 109bhp and 170Nm of torque. Suzuki also claims to have abolished turbo lag with the utilisation of an air-bypass valve.

WHAT’S THE SPEC LIKE? Both grades feature an extensive standard spec list, including 94 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

smartphone linkage and a satellite navigation system. The higher grade SZ5 also features automatic airconditioning, a full entertainment and communication system, electric rear windows, adaptive cruise control and radar brake support – not bad for a hatchback priced at under £14,000.

However, the Baleno feels slightly dull and plasticky on the inside. The grey fabric seats, while outdated, are surprisingly capacious (remember the 2.64m interior length), and when folded flat make for an impressive load bay. A seven-inch display in the centre of the dash hosts the satnav and other features, while neatly arranged in between the analogue dials is a 4.2-inch advanced multiinformation LCD display.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE? Despite being comfortable and pleasant to drive, the Baleno doesn’t have an obvious edge over its competitors. It is nippy on country roads and corners quickly yet feels

THE RIDE

Soft suspension means the Baleno can suffer from body roll

unrefined on motorways, with more road and wind noise than would be expected. Unfortunately, the car has unnervingly light steering, and slight body roll because of soft suspension.

There’s always a silver lining, though, and in the Baleno it comes in the form of the third of its five gears, which is torquey and enjoyable.

WHAT DO THE PRESS THINK?

AutoExpress says: ‘The Suzuki Baleno is a bit of a hidden gem in the supermini class. It’s fun to drive, practical, comfortable and reasonably cheap to run.’

WHAT DO WE THINK? The Baleno has the potential to appeal to a wide customer base.

However, with so many other, more-established options available, it will face difficulty breaking into the segment – something that Suzuki appears to have anticipated, tentatively predicting UK sales figures of only 3,500 in the first full year.

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Suzuki Baleno Price: £13,999 Engine: 1.0-litre 3-cylinder Boosterjet Power: 109bhp Max speed: 124mph 0-60mph: 11.4 seconds MPG: 62.7mpg Emissions: 105g/km

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KEY SELLING POINTS: 1 Spacious interior 2 Host of spec as standard on SZ-T and SZ5 grades 3 No turbo lag thanks to air-bypass valve

DEAL CLINCHER: Boosterjet technology gives the hatchback the power of a much larger car while remaining efficient

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 95

FEATURE. 100-HOUR CATERHAM CHALLENGE

In Seventh heaven It was a monumental task. Andrew Evans faced the challenge of building a Caterham Seven in 100 hours to mark the 100th edition of our magazine. How did it all go...?

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It’s worth noting that I’m not an engineer or mechanic of any kind. Other than some gentle spannering on an MX-5’s brakes 96 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHY: JONNY FLEETWOOD & JON REAY

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Andrew’s handson approach to self-tanning had left a ‘unique’ mark

ust about anyone who’s called themselves a car nut has entertained the possibility of building their own car.

For most of us, that’s where it stays – as a possibility that never gets fully realised. For many of the rest, it tends to end up as a half-finished project that’s the bane of our spouses’ lives and most commonly referred to as ‘that bloody car’.

Like most of us, I’ve thought of doing it myself but never really taken the opportunity. However, while canvassing thoughts during an editorial meeting for things that come in 100s to celebrate our centenary issue, I piped up with: ‘Well, the Caterham website says it takes 80-100 hours to build one in self-assembly form.’

It’s worth noting that I’m not an engineer or mechanic of any kind. Other than some gentle spannering on an MX-5’s brakes and a project car in my back garden – which is the bane of my wife’s life and most commonly referred to as ‘that bloody car’ – I’m just about a rank amateur.

According to Caterham’s own website, the assembly guide will take you through each step and the components come in labelled boxes that coincide with the build order – it ought not to be more challenging than a Lego kit. There’s even a dedicated tool kit available from Draper Tools for building the thing. I was so confident that I checked with my automotive engineer friend just how easy it would be for me to build the car inside 100 hours. His answer?

‘You?’ Uh-oh. Nevertheless, soon we found ourselves organising one Caterham kit to be shipped to Car Dealer HQ and to our weirdly shaped garage-cum-storage area largely filled with the suits’ unwell spare cars. The magnitude of the challenge didn’t really sink in until all the pieces arrived.

The car body, freshly painted in Porsche Orange and with windscreen attached, occupied a covered trailer, while everything else was inside a long wheelbase Transit van and emptied like a clown car: Caterham-labelled box after Caterhamlabelled box – 14 in total – of goodies. Then there was the engine, sitting in its own protective wooden crate.

Recommended as the start CarDealerMag.co.uk CarDealerMag.co.uk| 97 | 97

FEATURE. 100-HOUR CATERHAM CHALLENGE

Andrew’s flat pack from hell arrives

Caterham even matched paint with Evans’ gloves

point is the steering rack which, as promised, resides in box 1. The rack – with ‘Caterham’ embossed on the top – slots on to a prominent piece of chassis, secured by a pair of aluminium mounts either side with the ‘7’ logo engraved, and a pair of bolts from the appropriate fastener pack that drop down through the crossmember and are fixed in place with nyloc nuts. With the steering arms protruding through the holes in the chassis sides, the rack was done inside the first 15 minutes. A slow start perhaps, but it’s important not to get carried away too early.

The next step is to assemble the front suspension – which is in box 7. So much for box numbers corresponding to the build order! Oddly, these (along with many other bits of the car) are labelled for ‘left’ and ‘right’, which I’ve never been a fan of when it comes to describing sides of a car. In this case, the parts are clearly labelled, with the long arm pointing forwards, but I’d prefer them to be marked as nearside and offside.

Bolting up the suspension is largely troublefree, but there is a little tightness in some of the bolts. The forward part of the upper wishbone proves quite tricky to nip up, as the nut fastened to the rear of the car is too close to the car’s body to get a socket or a ring spanner on to it and there’s always a risk for an open spanner to slip and cause damage. The preassembled upright slots between the two wishbones, the track rod ends bolt up to it and one corner is done.

When you’ve done one side, the opposite should take far less time, but the fasteners were even tighter here.

The tricky nut was now so close to the bodywork that I couldn’t get a tool on it – in fact, it’s so close that if it turns even slightly, the corners will gouge the car... Thus I learn the importance of masking, although it’s possible to deform the bodywork temporarily with some pressure and flex it out of the way. The bottom wishbone’s front bolt was stiff to the point where I had to stop torqueing it home for fear of shearing off the bolt head (which would have been awkward). Copper slip to the rescue.

Next up, surprisingly, is the engine. Just about everything on the Caterham requires the engine to go in place first so that it can be threaded round to give the powertrain room to get in, rather than have it smack off components on the way in. The front suspension is the only exception, as the access to the fastening points 98 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

for the spring and upper wishbone are relatively obscured once the engine is in.

In our case, the Ford Sigma – a four-cylinder, 1.6-litre engine producing around 135hp – comes with the gearbox bellhousing ‘loosely’ attached for shipping. This needs removing, along with the starter motor, which is anything but loosely attached and by some pretty tricky-to-access bolts, so that it can be fitted to the front end of the gearbox and then reattached to the engine to form a complete powertrain assembly.

While the office ‘helping hands’ soon vanished

A

cutely aware that actually fitting an engine can be a timeconsuming task, and with the evening drawing in at the end of day 1, that’s where I call a halt to proceedings with almost 10 hours on the clock.

I’m greeted by the suspended engine at the start of day 2 – which is, of course, a Friday 13th.

I’m no paraskevidekatriaphobic, but I’m also not one to tempt fate, so I decide to recruit a couple of members of our video team to keep their eyes on things as I try to get the powertrain into its place.

In the case of our Sigma, it’s quite the challenge to navigate it into place. The assembly needs to be tilted so that the gearbox points downwards at around 30 degrees and slotted through the transmission tunnel before it’s gradually tilted upwards and pushed backwards to get over the horizontal chassis braces under the tunnel. This is far easier said than done, not least because the two engine mount brackets stick out like a cat’s elbows when you’re trying to get it into a carry case.

Taking the engine mount brackets off makes life easier, but it’s certainly a tight fit getting the bottom end down past the diagonal chassis bracing – masking won’t do the job when you’re waving round a 125kg lump of Ford’s finest, so I use some of the thick cardboard used as protection in the gearbox’s packing crate to prevent dents on the bracing.

With the powertrain almost in position I’m able to get under the car and fix the gearbox mounting plate up to the relevant part of the box.

This is really the first time I’m glad that I don’t have particularly wide hands, as you can’t really attach the plate to the chassis until the gearbox is nearly there, otherwise you won’t have the wiggle room to get the gearbox in, and once it’s

Andrew’s staring-at-it technique failed to work in you’ve got a very tight space to work in to get the plate attached. Loosely attached to one of its three positions, we can now adjust the engine’s position to get the two engine mounts on to the chassis. At first these are wildly out of whack, and getting the fixing bolt from mount to bracket on the nearside is incredibly tight – it’s a recessed socket on the bracket and rather difficult to access – but soon every part of the mountings is nipped up. A trip round with the torque wrench and snapping a couple of electrical connectors up means the engine is in place!

Remembering the manual’s advice that the steering column shouldn’t be fitted until the engine is in, I go ahead and slot the long, brazen rod into the hole in the dash and slide it all

It might look like a car crash – and to be brutally honest, largely it was – but this is the engine before Andrew was let loose with the socket set

“

The differential has been a worry since the start. It’s a pretty weighty part and I’m already pretty exhausted from two solid days at the car. the way down until it meets the universal joint attached to the steering rack.

It’s also a good time to put the prop shaft in place, so as not to leave the gearbox’s tail shaft exposed to the elements. I strap this up to the top of the transmission tunnel with a ziptie so as not to cause any undue force on the splines.

At this point, though, I’m just doing little, easy jobs to put off doing a couple of larger ones. The first of these is the differential and the second is the engine’s cooling system and heater assembly.

The differential has been a worry since the start. It’s a pretty weighty part and I’m already pretty exhausted from two solid days at the car.

Meanwhile, the cooling section of the build manual is one of the most confusing chunks

of text I’ve ever read – at least since my last Japanese exam at university. Not wanting to have to disentangle meaning from it, I call it a night again, with 22 hours on the clock.

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aturday counts as one of the worst days of my life so far. A nice early start and a minor brainwave – okay, a low table – sees the differential lifted into approximate position, after feeding the handbrake cable into place. The diff is then to be fitted into place by bolting the carrier into the chassis with two small bolts beneath and one absolutely huge, 11-inch bolt above, knitting either sides of the chassis with two sockets on the carrier.

The manual advises getting some sturdy screwdrivers through the top mounts as a temporary hold, then fixing the bottom bolts into place before getting the top bolt in. The 11-inch bolt got through three of the four mounts with little resistance but I realised that, after about five minutes of ratchet action, it simply wasn’t getting through the nearside chassis mount.

I must have tried just about everything to get this bolt home. Squirting some copper slip into the end had no effect and, while cathartic, wanging it with a hammer did nothing either. Getting some light into the mix revealed that the bolt end was about 2mm too low and too far rearwards to nip into the mount. ‘It is optional’, notes the build manual, ‘to grind a CarDealerMag.co.uk | 99

FEATURE. 100-HOUR CATERHAM CHALLENGE chamfer on the end of the bolt as this makes it easier to slide and locate the top bolt.’

I had hoped to avoid the Dremel in the build, but with four hours eaten up this morning I resolve to take out the bolt and grind it... only it won’t come out either. Rather than persisting with the nightmare, I go to find another job to do and come back at it afresh.

Assembling the exhaust seems like a good idea – I can at least get rid of a box that way.

The individual pipes are fed through the hole in the offside up to the relevant exhaust port in a specific order, and that’s right around the time I discover that they’re also shaped around the steering column. This makes things a little trickier than they ought to have been, but ultimately all four find their paths just fine.

The collector slots over the four pipes to unite them into a single box and is then secured to two of them by way of a pair of springs. You will need to give up any notion that you can compress these springs enough by hand to get them over the hooks, because it is clearly impossible. Instead, the ideal technique is to feed four zipties through them and tighten them one by one until the spring is a solid chunk of metal. Even then, you’ll need some force with pointed-nose pliers to get them over the hooks (and extreme care not to cause any bodywork damage in the process), but it does the job.

I still can’t come up with any reasonable way to solve the diff problem, so I turn my attention to the De Dion tube – the beam that holds the Caterham’s rear wheels in place and acts as part of the car’s suspension.

This is initially assembled when removed from the car. It would come back to bite me, but at this point I didn’t realise that this was a soft-fit to ensure the brake lines are aligned and adjusted to fit, and that everything bar the line should be removed afterwards before it’s fitted to the car. So I plough ahead and fit the ‘ears’ and then hang the hub components and brake calipers off it.

The two hard brake lines are assembled at this point, to be riveted to the De Dion tube and lined up to the calipers.

Day 3 and hour 34 is called at that point.

S

ometime in the night I realise that the top of the diff is up against the boot floor, which means it can be accessed from above if the floor is removed. The next morning, I remove the boot floor and the engine crane gets dangled into the gap. Attached to one side of the diff, the crane is able to lever the stubborn lump sufficiently to line the holes up, so I can yank the 11-inch bolt out, grind that chamfer with the Dremel, liberally douse it with copper slip and slot it back in place.

This wasn’t the end of the differential’s influence on my life, though. It comes with two flanges located into the sides that protect the splines from dirt and damage and are to be removed. The manual opines that: ‘This is done 100 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

‘Perhaps if I stand here long enough a real mechanic will come along and fix everything for me’

Colleagues helpfully popped by offering Evans ‘advice’ and to tell him he’d ‘missed a bit’ by using a bar and levering them out of the main case.’ Oh no it isn’t. Working through every possible long lever tool in my possession, nothing will engage in the groove and provide enough force to get the flanges out – and such a large amount of force is required that my shoulder cries foul and gives up.

At this point, the only thing I can think of to suit is a claw hammer. Luckily, it’s early afternoon on a Sunday and the shops are still open, so it’s just a quick trip to town for a pair of them. With one claw on either side of the flange, they quickly lever straight out of their sockets like the easiest

thing in the world. The propshaft gets bolted up to the diff and finally I’m free of the nightmare!

Lightly damaged, I return to the De Dion tube and try to feed it through the hole in the rear of the car, but no amount of twisting and turning will get the awkwardly-shaped piece of metal into the gap past the differential.

Taking one ear off, reattaching once in place, solves it. The rear driveshafts pop into the sides of the diff and are lightly held in place on the outsides of the car when the hub carriers are attached back up to the ears.

The rear suspension components are less complex than the front, with one A-frame, two radius arms and two spring/damper assemblies to join the chassis to the De Dion tube.

ANDREW’S TOP TIPS Read the manual first!

It’s not definitive and there are occasions where it’s confusing or not particularly apt, but going through the manual before you start allows you to properly plan your build and deal with any head-scratchers before you’re kneeling by the side of the car.

It’s a look that says: If you take one more picture I’ll show you just what I can do with a spanner plumbing outlet to outlet – aside from the tricky heater control valve, with the tiniest nut I’ve ever seen in a vehicle.

O

With that out of the way, I decide to have another look at the cooling system. The manual’s description is still largely impenetrable, so I end up going old-school and drawing my own cooling diagram. The radiator needs mounting at this point, and I spot that I haven’t actually put the front anti-roll bar on yet.

This takes quite a bit of force all round, with the rubber mounts proving rather stubborn to fit and even more unwilling to bolt up to the front of the car once the bar’s ends have been rammed home into the sockets in the upper wishbone.

The radiator mount can then be screwed on over it and the expansion tank mounted to the top crucifix in the engine bay.

The cooling system is then just a case of

ver the course of the first four days I’ve managed to get through about 45 hours of work, with seven lost to that differential in total.

With CDX16 coming up, full days were no longer possible and the Caterham became an afternoon and evening project, a few hours at a time.

The rear axle becomes a priority. The calipers prove a bit of a fiddle, as it’s a little tricky to access the bolts now, and getting the ends of the handbrake cable over the relevant attachments requires a bit of force.

The hub nuts prove a surprising challenge, too, as they are to be torqued to 270Nm and the torque wrench supplied is only rated to 210Nm. With no way to accurately measure this at the moment, this will be something I will need to adjust with my own torque wrench post-build.

Fixing the handbrake cable to the calipers reminds me I haven’t sorted the handbrake mechanism yet. This is because I’ve been unable to find all the components – they’re spread over multiple boxes – but once found it’s quick to sort.

It’s an extremely tight fit to get the handbrake attached into the transmission tunnel, though.

Wheels on and with the car almost ready to go on the ground, I notice it’s probably best to do the rear wings while the car is in the air. The fixings are tiny and fastening them seems an endless task, but finally they all go home, with the rear lights quickly threaded through the appropriate hole and fixed in place.

The front wings, we were advised by Caterham, look neater if you don’t drill and fix them as in the manual but leave them loose to be bonded at the factory in the post-build check.

With the mechanical parts and exterior largely done, it’s time to put the car on the ground to deal with the interior. Stage one of the interior is to glue the rear bulkhead carpet to the body. This is something I wasn’t prepared for, and trying to keep the carpets clean was something I didn’t

Find as many build blogs as you can These are people who’ve done it before you. The specifications of their vehicles may be a little different, but they’ve encountered all of the problems you will and will at least share your pain while probably offering a solution you hadn’t thought about.

Get a good workbench On several occasions, I wished I’d had a decent bench to lay a few things out on to visualise how they went together, or even to test-fit before fitting to the car.

Organise your fasteners Although everything is boxed, labelled and packaged, you’ll find yourself flitting between fastener packs like no tomorrow. With some bolts, nuts and washers easy to confuse, you’ll soon lose count of what you have and what you’ve used, so get them all out and organise them before you start.

Mask everything. Everything.

So many things on the Caterham are such tight fits that they rub – to say nothing of a spanner slipping off its nut and spearing towards your paintwork.

Even despite your best efforts, you will scratch the car, but masking things off reduces the chance and severity.

Don’t set a deadline We set ourselves a challenge but you shouldn’t. If you miss a deadline, it stacks up into the next day’s tasks, and soon you’re overdoing things to catch up. Not to mention the mistakes that can happen if you rush it.

Don’t do it yourself Building a Caterham can be a one-man job, but it really shouldn’t be. Some things (the differential, particularly) are simply maddening if you insist on going it alone. A second pair of hands, eyes or even just the company could keep you sane!

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 101

FEATURE. 100-HOUR CATERHAM CHALLENGE appreciate before I started. Luckily, it’s not a complex task, as it’s a case of spraying on contact adhesive to myriad assorted triangles and glueing them to the car.

Leaving the tunnel carpets to dry, it’s time to fit the seats in place. These bolt in four places through the floor and are secured underneath the car that I’m now wishing I hadn’t put on the ground – and reaching the nuts and bolts of the two inboard fixings simultaneously is a trial, particularly with that exhaust silencer in the way.

When the carpets are dry, the transmission

tunnel top goes over the handbrake and gearstick – itself quickly fixed into the top of the gearbox with three small screws. Screwing the gearstick handle on is a momentary task and that just leaves the lovely and surprisingly small Momo steering wheel.

Our 270S is ready for its close up, but it’s suddenly quite clear that the front wheels are toeing out – not dramatically so, but enough.

Luckily this is a simple fix – a little air under the front wheels, wind the track rod ends up to suit and put it back down again.

The keen-eyed will spot that our car

isn’t quite in roadgoing order. In order to concentrate on the parts required to make the car actually functional, we’ve not readied it for its IVA test. The IVA essentially requires that people can’t knock into the car and get cut or greasy, so there’s a lot of protective rubber strips left in the one remaining box.

It’s been gruelling but I’m pleased – nay, relieved – to say that the car was built with a handful of hours to spare. There was blood, sweat and more than a few swear words, but the end result was well worth it. Now, what can I do for issue 200...? [CD]

Key parts of the build Differential

Interior trim

Exhaust

Handbrake

This was a horror story. Difficult to position, with a carrier just enough out of alignment to frustrate, a nightmare to bolt home and then, once in place, give me a muscle tear trying to remove the flanges.

The 4-1 exhaust collector proved tricky, too, with the two springs that secure it to the pipes requiring a force way beyond what any human being is reasonably capable of generating.

Solved with zipties! Next time, I’d leave this job to the end, but it doesn’t half look good.

102 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

I hadn’t really appreciated that building the car isn’t just mechanical in nature. Fitting the interior carpets needed a little bit of upholstery work that I wasn’t really prepared for and almost mucked up. It’s amazing the difference that they make, though.

Engine

Getting the engine in required a few extra eyes, a significant angle on the engine crane balance and really quite a lot of protection of the chassis structure. Eventually, this needle was threaded, but the engine mounts took a little more time.

This proved the bane of the build, with the components (handbrake, clevis, cable, split pins, fasteners) liberally spread over a number of boxes rather than all in one place – and even my relatively slender hands struggled to secure it in place. This is worth solving very early on and not as late as I left it.

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 103

FEATURE. 100 DAYS OF TRADING UP

We embark on a 100-day Trading Up challenge He’s at it again! JAMES BAGGOTT sets off on another charity extravaganza to raise as much money as possible – and help celebrate Car Dealer’s 100th issue

I

’ve built myself a duvet nest from two bunks’ worth of the cheapest cross Irish Sea ferry faring linen, sunk two tactical glasses of red wine and inserted ear plugs to keep the next door cabin’s all night rave at bay. Snapper Fleetwood has opted for the lower bunk in our room that would make a Premier Inn look positively palatial and we both attempt to contain quite possibly the greasiest fish and chip supper ever served up to mankind for an eight-hour crossing to Liverpool. Hence, why I’ve opted for the top bunk.

So let me explain why I’ve subjected myself to a cruise with what appears to be the cast of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. It’s for one reason and one reason alone: Charity. To mark our 100th issue I wanted to take on a challenge. There were many suggestions in the office as to what that should be, but most of them seemingly looked like they’d either end in my untimely death or keep me away from Car Dealer HQ for many months. So naturally, being the boss, I relegated those to the maybe pile and looked for an old familiar feature, a comfort blanket of content if you will, instead.

Which brings me to this – 100 Days of Trading Up. You may remember I was here before – back in 2010 I decided to try to trade up to a Porsche

104 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

McNab wonders why he’s giving a car to a homeless man

Like a really rubbish Carol Vorderman, Baggott points at numbers

911 for 2011. In true Car Dealer style I failed miserably at hitting the deadline, eventually buying a 996 Porsche for £10k some 10 months too late. But the important thing to remember in all that was, despite the woeful time-keeping, I did actually manage to hit the target, eventually selling the Porsche for £12k and handing the proceeds over to BEN. This time the challenge is slightly different. As you’ve probably guessed by the imaginatively-titled 100 Days of Trading Up, my deadline has been etched in large type – in logo form no less – so I have absolutely no excuse for missing it. The idea is that I’ll buy and sell as many motors as I can in that 100day time frame and then at the end, cash out and hand the proceeds over to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Plan in place, I hit the emails, firing out pleading requests for assistance to any dealer boss who’d, now regrettably for them, handed me their business card at some stage in the past eight years. Eventually I found a winner.

Saintly Nigel McMinn, of Lookers fame, said he’d find me a car that I could hand over my initial £100 stake for and get me going. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘it’ll be in Belfast.’

McMinn convinced me that, despite a mini cruise back across the notoriously choppy Irish Sea, flying to the group’s Charles Hurst car sales city would be worth the trip. And as you’ve read elsewhere in this magazine it was so special we even got another feature out of it – so he wasn’t lying.

After an incredible tour of the sprawling facility, site boss Colin McNab introduced snapper Fleetwood and I to our first steed.

The LS430 – fondly dubbed the ‘Japanese Mercedes’ – was on a 54-plate and packed with kit.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 105 CarDealerMag.co.uk | 105

FEATURE. 100 DAYS OF TRADING UP

Baggott’s first trade involves a ferry, a ‘commodity’ and a night with a ‘Japanese Mercedes’

Perrys’ Jason Baker hands over the keys to a car

The cooling seats worked, the blinds worked, the sat nav might have looked like it was from a time before Windows 95, but worked too. In fact, the whole car was a strong testament to the might of Japanese engineering. That said, there was a slight problem with a front parking sensor, but I resolved that by turning the parking sensors off and ignoring it. I was pinning my hopes on the next owners being as amazed by the oscillating heater vents as I was, that hopefully they’d be distracted long enough to forget about the parking sensors, too.

I handed over my £100 (cash, obviously) to McNab and we were on our way. The Lexus booked at around £3,500 CAP Clean, which although made me look like I’m a master negotiator, in fact pointed more to Lookers’ generosity than my Mike ‘Hold Outcha ‘And’ Brewer bartering skills.

accepted the keys to a silver 1.6-litre Vauxhall Astra Turbo at Perrys’ Preston site the following morning.

Fortunately, I can see cars as a commodity in this business – items not to be loved, or admired, or liked, but used for the purposes of generating cash. Well, some cars at least. The 10-plate Astra was a solid example, with history and 69k miles – and given the badge on the front, I had an extra incentive to move it on quickly.

The site’s used car manager Jason Baker took possession of our Lexus for the grand sum of £3,500 and handed us ownership of the Astra which booked CAP Clean at £4,300. I thanked Perrys not only for their generosity, but their sense of humour with their choice of vehicle, and headed south.

As Fleetwood took an awkward amount of pictures of me at the wheel of a car I’d been

106 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

The idea was to move the 100 Days cars on through the trade as quickly as possible.

If I could convince the dealers to give me the best possible trade price for the car I was in, and then let me have one worth more as a swap, their donation would come by way of the difference in the middle. Easy.

Well, at least I thought it would be. With several hours to kill in Belfast before our night crossing disembarked, I put the feelers out.

After several obviously-put-straight-to-voicemail attempted calls and many, many emails, I struck gold. Ken Savage, the true gent that he is, offered up Perrys’ might and promised to find me a trade.

That might would come in the form of his used car boss Clive Freeman, who soon found us our next move.

For those regular followers of the magazine, you’ll know just how delighted I was when I

From a ‘commodity’ to a 208 in 24 hours. Nice

Astra gone (thankfully), Baggott can now relax

banned from driving for not quite nearly long enough, I searched my brain’s Rolodex of contacts for the next step up the ladder. In was in luck: One of my previous emails had found a winner. CarShop CEO Jonathan Dunkley had replied and said he’d be happy to assist. ‘Head to Northampton and we’ll have a trade ready for you,’ he said. So that’s exactly what we did.

At CarShop’s huge Northampton site we met marketing director Leo Nelson, who showed us to our next steed. The malbec red, 1.4-litre diesel Peugeot 208 Active was in fantastic condition. On a 13-plate with 68k miles on the clock, I couldn’t quite believe that within 24 hours we were up to this. It booked CAP Clean at £5,000, a healthy jump up the ladder for Great Ormond Street – and a relatively easy car to move on.

Well, I thought as much. Once back at the office, a week before CDX, plans CarDealerMag.co.uk | 107

FEATURE. 100 DAYS OF TRADING UP

It took a little longer than planned, but finally we’ve moved the Peugeot on. The Mercedes that replaced it only lasted three hours...

Baggott was so stressed about his next move he forgot to get dressed; luckily his pointing hand was still working perfectly for the big day at Silverstone took over my To Do list. However, while chairing our pre-CDX Used Car Debate at Whittlebury Hall, I got chatting to Richard Hollis, head of used car development for Jardine Motors Group, and he promised to help.

He told me to get in touch when the dust of CDX had settled.

Two weeks later, CDX celebration hangover a long and distant memory, I remembered the chat Hollis and I had and sent him a pleading message on Twitter. Thankfully he took pity on me and within 24 hours had some options.

The first looked promising. A 13-plate Ford Fiesta was at the auctions and Hollis wanted to get some details on its condition before letting us loose. Unfortunately, it had some serious damage down one side. ‘Give me a few hours, I’ll have something else for you by the end of the day,’ he wrote in an email.

True to his word, Hollis was soon back with 108 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

another car. This time there was no damage and it had a premium badge. A Mercedes E Class 320 CDI Estate on a 56-plate. It was a little leggy at 86k miles, but packed with kit.

Sunroof, heated seats and sat nav ticked all the right boxes and before going to pick it up from Jardine’s Porsche Centre East London I was already trying to move it on.

Marshall boss Daksh Gupta said it wasn’t new enough for him, but promised to help out in the future. Imperial Car Supermarket director Neil Smith said it wasn’t right for him either, also promising to help out along the line.

Jamie Caple, Caralot’s creative director, offered me an Audi A5, worth around £6.5k, but it had a lot more miles than the Merc so I politely declined and put his offer of help on hold for a future date too.

So, stuck with few options, I decided to cash out. A call to our friends at BCA Blackbushe saw

Fleetwood and I divert to the gigantic auction site on our way back to the office. Less than three hours after picking the German estate up I’d parted company with it – entered into the auction for the week after this magazine goes to press.

I told Hollis my plan and he offered to sell it alongside the other Jardine cars in his weekly sale. ‘It should do pretty well at the auction,’ he said. ‘It’s a seven-seat model, has the summer tyre spares in the boot and I’d hope it would make at least £6,000, maybe even more depending on the right crowd.’

So as I type, I’m playing the waiting game. In a few days’ time I’ll see just how far I’ve managed to trade up from my original £100 stake. Once cashed in, I plan to find a dealer who’ll give me a decent trade car at well under book price so I can start all over again. Anyone out there fancy chipping in? By the time you read this I should have £6k waiting for the right car… [CD]

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 109

FEATURE. WE SELL 100 CARS IN 100 MINUTES

Hammer time S tood on the BCA rostrum, looking like an awkward teenager on his first day of work experience, I have a sudden wave of nausea that only the fear of seriously cocking something up in public can bring.

There were many reasons for this bit-of-sickin-the-mouth moment: One was the fact the professional auctioneer standing next to me was, I can only assume, speaking Russian to the packed Blackbushe auction hall, because I couldn’t understand a single word that exited his mouth. Then there was the fact I stood out like a high-visibility baby giraffe with greying hair, nervously loitering to help BCA achieve one special goal – to sell 100 cars in 100 minutes, all the while being ‘assisted’ by Team Car Dealer.

The plan was supposed to be a simple one – well, at least I thought it was. To mark our 100th issue, we wanted to sell 100 cars in 100 minutes and BCA was the firm to make it happen. As it’s already shifting hundreds of thousands of cars every year, the auction company is used to fastpaced sales, so this challenge should have been easy. But could they do it while the bumbling Car Dealer team got in the way? Well, that could be a tall order.

‘I’m sure we’ll manage it,’ a confident BCA Blackbushe manager James Gibson tells me, as we catch up before the auction opens. ‘Selling 100 cars in 100 minutes is certainly possible, but the whole operation needs to run smoothly. That means everything has to go to plan, from the cleaning and valeting to the cars arriving in the hall at the right time and in the right order. As long as all those pieces of the

110 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Team Car Dealer descended on BCA Blackbushe for a special mission to mark the magazine’s century. Every second counted – and there was much to learn and get right first time. How did it all go? JAMES BAGGOTT describes the day

jigsaw come together we should manage it.’

I like Gibson’s confidence, because looking at my Car Dealer colleagues, selling cars couldn’t be further removed from their office-bound duties.

We’re each handed a bright yellow tabard with the words ‘Here To Help’ emblazoned across the lapel. I can’t help thinking that never has a three-word statement been so far from the truth.

I suggest to Gibson that ‘Here To Break Things’ would have been more appropriate, but he doesn’t look impressed.

Sophie, Andrew and Jack are with me ‘assisting’ with operations for the day and all look as perplexed as I do as BCA’s PR boss, Tim Naylor, assigns us roles. Sophie’s heading to the evaluation area, Andrew will be getting his hands dirty in the valeting bay,

James Gibson politely asks Baggott to leave

Jack will be attempting not to run people over while driving the cars through the hall and I will be stood on the rostrum shuffling paperwork for the auctioneers.

First on the job list is a trip to BCA’s prep area, where the firm deals with hundreds of cars every day. A team of experts use iPads and a sharp eye for detail to grade all the cars entered into the auctions. Sophie is shown the ropes by appraisal supervisor GT Sansj and appraisal team leader Shahzad Mansha. The idea is to assess the car’s condition so that web buyers get a good understanding of the car, and it’s clear to see it’s a very thorough process, despite the fact it takes the experts a matter of minutes to carry it out.

Unfortunately for the appraisal twosome showing Car Dealer the ropes, their cars-per-hour tally is about to take a dramatic nosedive.

Sophie and I follow GT as he talks us through the process. Either there’s something in the water at Blackbushe or they go to a special Talk Really Fast Class on day one of BCA training. I feel like I need another coffee to catch up to the 150bpm rhythm of his explanation. He rapidly goes through his assessment, starting at the front nearside corner and working around the car. He’s checking

SOPHIE’S DAY: ASSESSING THE CARS

James writes stuff down as Sophie wears a hat Hat-wearing expert Sophie hides from Andrew for damage, scratches, dents and signs of repair and all the while thinking about the grade that he’ll give it.

This grading system lets buyers know what sort of repair work will be needed before they can retail the car – and with many buyers now logging online to bid, this information is more important than ever.

‘My job is about giving the buyers the best possible information so they can decide if it’s the car they want to buy, even if they’re bidding on the internet,’ explains GT. It usually takes three months’ training to get up to speed with the process, so Sophie’s 15 minutes of tuition could lead to all sorts of problems.

She takes control of the iPad and looks baffled as she wanders around a BMW 1 Series, but with some guidance from GT and an easy-to-use guide

on the tablet’s screen, she’s soon finished the job.

With Sophie up to speed on the assessment front, we leave her to worry GT further as she tackles the next 99 cars for our sale.

Lined up in the huge compound, the cars stretch as far as the eye can see – so it looks like Sophie has her work cut out.

At least she’s not getting her hands too dirty – unlike Andrew. Next to the assessment bay is a huge hangar where an army of contractors from Motorclean tackle the vast numbers of vehicles heading to the BCA lanes. It’s an impressive setup, where teams of seven work on nine different valeting lines. MD Paul Cranwell shows Andrew and me around.

‘We clean 500 vehicles a day here – so your 100 cars should take us about two hours,’ explains Cranwell. Motorclean holds the franchise for

“

I suggest to Gibson that ‘Here To Break Things’ would have been more appropriate.

CAR auctions. They’re more complicated than I thought. That’s probably because I usually turn up as a spectator (or sometimes a buyer if I’m helping my dad buy new work vans), checking out the latest stock and trying to stand as still as possible in the auction room – knowing my luck, it’s highly likely that I’d scratch my head and end up buying a £20,000 car I don’t particularly want.

Anyway, since on this occasion I was a member of the Car Dealer gang on a mission to sell 100 cars in 100 minutes, I got to see far more than usual. Going behind the scenes at BCA was much like (I imagine) going backstage at the theatre or a Hollywood movie set – I almost felt like we shouldn’t be there.

I was first up on the duties front and – always the lucky one – I had one of the most fiddly and crucial tasks.

My job was to carry out vehicle appraisals, marking them from one to five in terms of condition. Using a special BCA app and a clever little barcode on each vehicle, this essentially means running around the car to check every single detail, from the bodywork and wheels to the carpets and interior buttons.

You have to keep a sharp eye to spot any dents, scratches or kerbed alloys.

The professional said he’d slowed down the appraisal process to show me the ropes for my benefit. Surely not!

I was out of breath just watching him.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 111

FEATURE. WE SELL 100 CARS IN 100 MINUTES

Sophie’s hat-pertise rubs off on BCA team

James proves he can count to four

valeting at three BCA sites, but Blackbushe is by far the biggest. Cranwell explains that a sticker on the windscreen tells his team the valeting grade that the vendor has picked – most go for ‘silver’, which adds an interior clean to the exterior preparation. Gold adds a mop and polish for those cars that really need a good sprucing-up.

Cars start in the wet bay, where they’re given a jet wash and soaping. As they move along the line, the teams dry them and then vacuum the carpets. The state of some of the cars that

are waiting in the to-be-washed line is quite shocking. I look over at Andrew and can see he’s thinking exactly the same thing – unfortunately for him, that’s his job for the next few hours.

Cranwell and I watch Andrew get to work. It’s soon clear cleaning is an alien concept to him and he seems to be struggling with understanding a sponge. We try to explain it’s not rocket science – apply to bodywork and rotate hand – but even that doesn’t seem to be getting through.

‘Well, let’s just say he’s not going to be earning much today,’ jokes Cranwell. I hear one of the valeters Andrew’s taken over from whisper to his colleague: ‘That’s the longest I’ve ever seen anyone take to polish a bonnet.’ Oh dear.

Remembering Gibson’s earlier advice about everything working seamlessly to get these 100 cars shifted in 100 minutes I fear Andrew – or, more to the point, Motorclean – have their hands full. We leave Andrew up to his armpits in suds and working up a sweat only a northerner this far south gets when the temperature reaches a balmy 9 degrees C, and head back to driving school.

Jack is the man trusted to help transport some of the 100 cars through the auction hall, but first he needs to be assessed to ensure he’s safe behind the wheel.

Driving a car through what is essentially a hall full of pedestrians is, as you can imagine, enough to give a health and safety officer an irregular heartbeat. Add in the complexity of a journalist at the wheel and it would be safe to say there were a few furrowed brows in the driving department.

Jack’s ability to start the car – hardly a challenging procedure – is marked as good, average or poor. Quite what he might need to do to get the poor grade is hard to guess, but it’s a score on the card nonetheless.

Once the assessor is happy with Jack’s ability to drive, he passes the test and is shown to the line of cars. While he searches for the keys, it’s my turn to go back to school as I’m ushered towards the rostrum.

As I bumble over, the auction is already in full swing. Our time with the gavel starts at around 11am as the We Buy Any Car sale begins.

I’m shown up to the rostrum and hang around nervously at the back while the team show me the ropes. Two auctioneers take it in turns to sell the cars and they’re rapidly firing through them, looking for bids in the hall while carefully matching those entered online.

There are more than 100 bidders logged on for

ANDREW’S DAY: CLEANING CARS FORTUNATELY, no one at BCA has ever seen any of my cars – ‘presentable’ is far down the list of words you’d use to describe them – which doesn’t bode well for our 100-car challenge.

Rolling in from the vast parking area, the cars slot into one of seven parallel washing bays for a quick jetwash. Once thoroughly rinsed off, they head straight inside for a chamois down on one of nine lines before the interior-clean teams pounce. The carpets, seats and boot are vacuumed, which is probably the longest part of the process, as these vehicles have commonly been de-fleeted or come in through a car-buying website and are, let’s say, ‘well lived in’.

I’m not certain that I’ve ever vacuumed the interior of any of my cars, so this was something of a novel experience.

From there it’s on to the polishing stage. Liquid car wax is very liberally applied to the panels and polished off – and while the professionals here have some very nice rotary polishers, I’m not trusted with power tools and instead I have to do my best Karate Kid impression to produce the shiniest Ford Mondeo bonnet in town.

Now satisfactorily clean, the cars head to the end of their lines for pre-inspection photography, with the snaps taken from specific angles on a tablet, and go off to the next part of their pre-sales journey.

112 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

An expert mops up after Car Dealer’s ‘efforts’

Andrew does some proper work (for once)

Andrew takes a quick selfie for Instabook the sale from the comfort of their dealerships and one of the team is carefully entering the bids into the system as they happen.

Everything happens so quickly that it’s hard to keep up, but with assistants shuffling the paperwork for each car and taking the deposits from those winning bidders in the hall, it’s a well-oiled machine. A well-oiled machine that’s about to have its sump drained by inserting a 6ft buffoon into the mix.

My job for the first part of the 100-car auction is to help with the paperwork. Documents and details need to be matched up seamlessly with the cars entering the auction hall so the

Above, Baggott with a smile that says ‘I have literally no idea what I’m doing’. Meanwhile, below top, Jack’s eyebrow takes centre stage

“

JACK’S DAY: DRIVING CARS

I can’t quite work out if the look they’re giving me is one of pity or desperation.

auctioneer knows all he needs to about the upcoming vehicles so he can maximise the sale price. It sounds like a simple job but at the rate we’re selling these cars, this is paperwork on a supercharged scale.

I quickly lose my place when the cars start running out of sync thanks to the odd non-starter in the waiting area. I need to react quickly, but soon need some help from the professionals. I can’t quite work out if the look they’re giving me is one of pity or desperation.

My inability to shuffle paper doesn’t look good for my time on the front of the rostrum.

Fortunately, I’m trusted to sell just the one –

midway through the 100 car sales. It’s a Honda Jazz which, despite my best efforts, doesn’t look like it’ll make its reserve price of £2,400. The WBAC representative, whose cars we are selling, is at the other end of the rostrum and can give the nod to sell if he’s happy at the price, even if it is under the reserve.

The bid I have tabled is £150 less and he gives the thumbs-up – it’s a sale and I bring the hammer down.

It’s a thrilling feeling selling a car, but I’m ushered away before I can get used to it, back to ruining the paperwork.

Cars are flying through the auction at a rate of

I WAS put in charge of the auction equivalent of a restaurant’s front-ofhouse – driving the cars (including a sad-looking Porsche Boxster) through the main bidding area. Like a well-run restaurant, we’d seen the process that goes into creating an auction-ready motor, and now it was time for it to serve them up to the waiting bidders.

Never before did I know what it’s like to be a cow, until now. There’s a long line of cars preparing to go through the auction room, and I was in one of them. You drive through, into the main hangar, where a variety of bidders walk around you and check out the car close up. They’ve had a look beforehand, of course, but this is their last chance to examine the vehicle before putting in a bid for it.

Unnerving? Just a little bit. It’s like driving into the area around a football match after the final whistle’s gone off. People swarm around the car, the bidding starts and then, before you’ve even had a chance to think, it’s time to move. Travelling straight through the opposite side of the room and out, I park the cars ready for their new owner. And repeat.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 113

FEATURE. WE SELL 100 CARS IN 100 MINUTES around one every 30 seconds or so now, and we’re well on track to smash our target.

Sophie’s appraisals have done the job and Andrew has wiped the sweat from his northern forehead and joined her in the seats opposite the rostrum. I can see them both laughing at my fumbling around and poor attempts not to look like the most awkward man in the world.

As the clock clicks ever closer to the 100 minutes and Jack rolls into view in a Porsche it becomes clear we’re going to smash the 100 car

target. By ‘smash’, I mean ‘mildly beat’, but as the Countdown theme tune plays in my head, we call time at 103 cars sold. Despite our best efforts, BCA’s incredible car-selling machine has helped us hit our target. A mammoth effort for a bunch of motoring hacks from Gosport. Well, at least that’s what I thought.

‘It was a good effort,’ says Gibson as he escorts me off the rostrum.

‘Just imagine what we would have managed if you lot hadn’t been getting in the way!’

Fair point, Mr Gibson, fair point. [CD]

BCA FACTS n BCA Blackbushe was opened by Prince Michael of Kent on May 20, 1986 – so has just celebrated its 30th birthday n Sales are held five days a week – cars on every day apart from Thursdays, when commercial vehicles head through the halls n Blackbushe is one of 23 sites operated by BCA and is the largest centre in Europe n It has three auction halls, the undercover canopy has space for more than 1,000 cars, and the vehicle prep site covers 50,000 sq ft.

WHAT WE SOLD AND FOR HOW MUCH Reg Model Price 2006 BMW 650I £8,150 2006 Ford Focus LX £975 2006 Peugeot 107 £1,100 2005 Vauxhall Corsa £1,250 2006 Ford Focus TDCI £825 2007 Audi A4 £2,650 2005 Bentley Continental GT £18,900 2008 Renault Koleos £3,800 2007 Renault Clio £3,700 2008 Jaguar XF £6,550 2004 Kia Sorento £1,500 2006 Mercedes-Benz B180 £2,550 2008 Saab 9-3 Sportwagon £2,850 2009 Kia Cee’d £1,575 2007 Porsche Cayenne £9,600 2008 BMW 325i £5,500 2005 Suzuki Ignis £1,450 2008 Volvo C30 £3,000 2006 Nissan Micra C+C £1,550 2005 VW Golf £1,800 2004 VW Golf £1,800 2008 Nissan Note £1,150 2006 Vauxhall Zafira £2,300 2007 VW Polo £2,650 2006 Renault Clio £1,250 2008 Ford Mondeo £3,500 2008 Honda Jazz £2,250 2004 BMW 318Ci £200 2009 Ford Fiesta £3,500 2008 Vauxhall Astra £1,975 2005 Chrysler Grand Voyager £2,400 2007 Vauxhall Astra £1,350 2006 VW Polo £2,450 2007 BMW 730D £6,300 114 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

2007 2006 2005 2004 2007 2004 2005 2003 2005 2008 2004 2008 2007 2007 2007 2006 2005 2008 2005 2004 2006 2007 2007 2003 2008 2006 2008 2008 2006 2006 2005 2004 2006 2008 2008

VW Polo £1,700 Renault Espace £1,400 Porsche Boxster £10,400 BMW 645Ci £5,500 VW Polo £3,700 VW Golf £2,150 Renault Megane £950 Toyota Corolla £1,450 Toyota Yaris £1,550 VW Golf £3,000 Porsche Cayenne £7,300 Peugeot 207 £1,150 Vauxhall Antara £3,125 Mercedes-Benz S600 £9,600 Mercedes-Benz E320 £4,250 VW Polo £2,700 Vauxhall Vectra £1,275 Toyota Aygo £2,900 Honda Jazz £800 Porsche 911 Carrera £27,600 Ford SMax £3,500 Vauxhall Zafira £900 Toyota Prius £4,500 Mercedes-Benz CLK £4,200 Peugeot 308 £2,100 Ford Mondeo £1,250 Renault Megane £2,350 Mercedes-Benz CLC £4,800 Toyota Aygo £2,200 Porsche Boxster £11,000 Toyota Corolla £1,075 Toyota Rav4 £3,650 Vauxhall Astra £1,750 Vauxhall Corsa £1,400 VW Touran £3,800

2006 Vauxhall Corsa £1,650 2004 Toyota Avensis £500 2003 VW Touran £700 2005 Renault Espace £550 2004 Alfa Romeo 147 £150 2005 Peugeot 206 £100 2006 Nissan Qashqai £4,400 2005 Ford Fiesta £350 2003 VW Touran £1,100 2004 Renault Grand Scenic £175 2006 Saab 9-5 £1,500 2001 Subaru Impreza £1,500 2002 BMW 330Ci £1,300 2007 Honda Civic £1,550 2001 Audi A4 £350 2001 Mercedes-Benz E320 £700 2002 Citroen Xsara Picasso £1,000 2007 Peugeot 407SW £600 2003 Honda S2000 £9,450 2005 Honda Civic £1,575 2004 Rover Streetwise £100 2005 Chevrolet Kalos £100 2001 Honda Civic £50 1998 Audi A4 Avant £100 2000 Ford Fiesta £50 2004 Daewoo Kalos £125 2001 Ford Focus £50 2005 Ford Ka £375 2004 Renault Megane £225 2003 Daewoo Tacuma £50 2003 Peugeot 206Sw £50 2001 Nissan Micra £75 2000 Skoda Fabia £50 1999 Peugeot 406 £100 Total £284,025

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CarDealerMag.co.uk | 115

FEATURE.

In one of the most comprehensive surveys of car dealers ever carried out, we asked more than 500 readers to name their favourite cars to sell – and supply us with some reasons why.

SOPHIE WILLIAMSON-STOTHERT introduces the results of our poll

116 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHY: JONNY FLEETWOOD

R

eaching our 100th milestone, we decided to celebrate this exciting occasion by getting our loyal readers involved in helping us piece together the biggest edition of Car Dealer Magazine yet.

Over the course of seven weeks, we spoke to more than 500 dealers to find out which are YOUR Top 100 Favourite Cars To Sell of all time.

Our findings are published on the following pages, which contain your thoughts on the world’s best-selling, classleading and most all-round iconic motors.

In our exclusive Car Dealer survey, both independent and franchised dealers nationwide spared five minutes of their time to point out the key selling points of almost every vehicle to leave the production lines of factories all over the globe.

Starting from 100, we’ll be counting down through the list of vehicles that you’ve voted as your favourite cars to sell, to find out which four-wheeled machines you’ve dubbed THE best.

Thank you from the team at Car Dealer Magazine to every dealer who took part in our survey – or who was hassled by one of our esteemed keyboard warriors into taking part. And now to the results of our survey...

CarDealerMag.co.uk CarDealerMag.co.uk| |117 117

FEATURE. TOP 100 FAVOURITE CARS TO SELL

100

99

Nissan Note

BMW M4

YOU described Nissan’s mini MPV as ‘a quirky little runaround, which is surprisingly capable’.

Built in Sunderland and launched in 2004, the five-door hatchback shares features with other vehicles in the Nissan range, including the award-winning Qashqai, the Juke and the Micra.

The Note isn’t viewed as one of the most fun vehicles to sell, but it’s always a safe option. ‘The Note has always been a good seller,’ one dealer told us. ‘You find it’s a car that appeals to a senior age group, and that reaffirms its levels of quality and reliability – buyers wouldn’t keep coming back if it didn’t do the job.’

THE M4 had big boots to fill, replacing the legendary M3. Launched in 2014 and red-lining at 7,500 rpm, the engine utilises two turbochargers and produces more than 400bhp. Fixed to the six-speed manual gearbox, it can sprint from 0-60mph in just over four seconds.

‘The M4 is an incredible car,’ one dealer pointed out in our survey. ‘It’s a performance coupe that appeals to both GT lovers and M car enthusiasts – and it doesn’t disappoint.’

Another dealer added: ‘There’s always a danger that BMWs are going to lose their spark, especially as technology continues to take over. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case with the M4. It’s done its E Series predecessors proud.’

98

97

Peugeot 208 GTi

Volvo V70

GIVEN the 208 is well thought of as a return to form in this sector from Peugeot, it’s not a surprise to find it in your Top 100.

It is a surprise, though, to find that it’s so low on the list – and all of you who responded to our survey with the 208 chose to specifically mention the 208 GTi over any other version.

Performance hatch fans are well served with the 208 GTi, after the slightly softer 206 and 207 variants that didn’t tick the same boxes as the legendary 205 GTi. The performance level featured highly in your replies to our survey and you also rate the 208’s more exciting styling.

VOLVO’S V70 is just about the brand’s banner car – ask most people to picture a Volvo and they’ll come up with a decent-sized estate car that never goes wrong.

And after 20 years on sale in the UK, that’s not exactly a bad mental image for a brand to have.

Your responses told the same story.

Comments all centred on the car’s reliability and safety being particular lures for customers, and it resulted in the V70 being a popular car to have in the showroom – you told us that, new or used, they sell straight away and find particular favour among more mature buyers.

96

95

Lotus Elise

BMW X6

IT’S the car credited with saving Lotus, and as a result, the Elise holds a position as one of the greatest British cars ever made.

The lightweight, mid-engined Elise is entirely built in East Anglia, using aluminium and fibreglass to create a car that requires very little power to go really very quickly indeed.

Sticking to Colin Chapman’s original formula for low-weight road cars, the Elise stops and handles just as wonderfully, too.

It’s a recipe you’re big fans of, citing just how good the car is to drive and – though it sold in incredible volumes for a Lotus – how unusual it is to see them as reasons why they’re among your favourites to sell.

THE X6 was a car created by BMW to fill one last niche in its line-up. Based on its popular X5 SUV, the X6 was designed to offer all of the looks of a coupe road car but with the raised ride height usually associated with an off-roader.

Created in 2009, it has gone on to spawn another generation that gave customers a greater choice of engines and trim levels.

A hybrid version is also available, allowing X6 owners the ability to drive without having to worry about fuel costs.

A true luxury product, it sold remarkably well in almost all of the markets in which it went on sale.

94

93

BMW i3

Mini Countryman Cooper S

BMW’S i3 was the German carmaker’s first attempt at a mass-produced compact all-electric car.

Using lightweight materials, such as carbon fibre and composite plastics, it managed to toe the line between luxurious and weight-saving components.

As such, the interior of the i3 is an extremely pleasant place to be, with high levels of technology on display.

One dealer told us how he’d ‘sold one to a 911 owner who had seen one beating him away from the lights’.

As well as incredible economy, the i3 is also supremely fast, which is why it experienced such popularity and continues to do so today.

THE subcompact crossover doesn’t resemble much of the vehicle that once bore the Countryman name in the 1970s, but it was the first car of its type to be launched in 2010 by BMW Mini, causing quite a stir among Mini enthusiasts old and new.

‘The Countryman is a tricky one,’ said one dealer. ‘It’s designed to offer drivers stepping away from the hatch an attractive and practical alternative, but it’s not always as appealing to non-Mini drivers.’

Nevertheless, you did tell us that ‘the Countryman is an ideal car for buyers starting a family and wanting to retain a modern set of wheels – it’s just the right size.’

118 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

92

91

Suzuki Vitara

Nissan Micra

THE Suzuki Vitara started life as a compact off-roader but has grown to become more of a crossover-style car, with the current generation bearing almost no resemblance to the model that spawned it in 1988.

Dealers liked its ‘good value for money and style’, and we’d have to agree.

Offered with a range of engines, the modern Vitara is economical and good to drive. It’s also still very capable off-road, thanks to powertrains that boast more torque and power.

It was actually made smaller than the previous-generation car, which made parking much easier. With both two- and four-wheel-drive versions available, it’s also as happy on the road as off it.

FIRST produced in 1982, the Nissan Micra is one of the Japanese carmaker’s most recognisable models.

Consistently referred to for its reliability and ease of use, the Micra has been the go-to car for younger drivers or those looking to keep running costs down. One dealer noted that the Micra was ‘reliable, comfortable and great value for money.’

Though some criticised the car’s limited amount of headroom in the rear, the Micra did score points on security. During a recent test of keyless operating systems, it beat Mercedes and BMW cars – punching well above its weight on the subject of anti-theft systems.

90

89

Smart fortwo

Toyota GT86

SMART’S fortwo broke the mould for city cars by showing that compact vehicles could still offer plenty of space.

Not only that, but the fortwo was one of the first cars that was capable of being parked nose-in to a slot, making it ideal for city dwellers.

Based around a ‘Tridion Cell’, the fortwo was also incredibly safe, despite its diminutive size.

The car’s clever packaging hasn’t changed all that much since its creation in 1998, and is still popular with customers who are looking for an extremely economical city car. Dealers like its ‘good reliability’, which no doubt comes from its Mercedes-Benz upbringing.

TOYOTA brought out the GT86 to offer drivers a simplistic, unadulterated driving experience for a much smaller price than those that came with competitor vehicles.

With a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive set-up, the GT86 met with incredibly positive responses from critics. And with a spot-on driving position, most found the GT86 quickly accessible.

Some questioned the car’s lack of power, although the majority praised its ability to give supercar thrills at a fraction of the cost. It also came with an impressive warranty. One dealer explained that they liked it because it was ‘fast and fun’ – and we’d have to argue that it’s good value, too.

88

87

Toyota Land Cruiser

Renault Clio

THE Land Cruiser is Toyota’s longest-running car series – and for good reason. Trustworthy and reliable, it’s attracted customers away from other off-road marques since 1951.

Now available in every market, except China and Hong Kong, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen a Land Cruiser at some point on the road.

The original Land Cruiser was created after the Imperial Japanese Army discovered an abandoned Bantam Jeep during the Second World War, and the vehicle has gone on to become one of Toyota’s most successful.

Even now, dealers tell us that it is in ‘high demand’ – so it’s still very much at the forefront of the off-road market.

RENAULT’S Clio is one of the most popular hatches of all time. It’s been offered with all manner of engines, trim levels and interior specifications, as well as driving characteristics that are fun and involving.

It’s also gone on to take the form of Renaultsport editions, giving drivers an even quicker motoring experience. Even lower-specification models were good to drive and cheap to run, too.

Thanks to low running costs, the Clio has been immensely popular with younger drivers, giving them the opportunity to enter into motoring without breaking the bank. Dealers loved the way it drove, too, calling it a ‘fun little sporty car’. We couldn’t agree more.

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Mazda3

BMW 6 Series

THE Mazda3 has been through a couple of generations now, each with their own appeal, according to your responses.

Originally based on the Ford Focus, back when Ford owned a controlling stake in the Japanese company, the Mazda3 had almost all of the merits of the Focus and you rated its practicality and design (at least in hatchback form). The more recent car was made without Ford’s help and you still comment on the design, but find the equipment levels and technology on offer far more of a draw.

Whichever model Mazda3, though, your responses always included how nice it is to drive – hardly a surprise from the company that makes the MX-5!

THE BMW 6 Series is an attractive coupe based on the 7 Series saloon’s platform. That means it has a huge amount of legroom for passengers, but incorporates this into a sweeping aerodynamic body.

Of course, we all remember the 6 Series of the late ’70s and ’80s, but the modern 6 Series first broke cover in 2003.

With a body shaped by alternative designer Chris Bangle, it split buyers down the middle with its futuristic looks. These have evolved into a car with a dynamic appearance, as well as spawning a fourdoor ‘Grand Tourer’ version.

Dealers loved them because of their ‘added luxury’ as well.

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Fiat Panda

Audi Q7

NOMINATIONS for Fiat’s Panda cover both the wonderfully basic original car and the updated modern versions, but many of the same comments apply to both.

It’s one of the few cars to carry off the modern retro reimagining of the original car, because it stays so close to the original recipe and only updates what’s necessary – helping it to a European Car of the Year title in 2004.

Your responses made mention of just how easy to drive and cheap to run the ‘nuova’ Panda is, drawing direct comparisons with the same qualities of the original car. The 4x4 version attracted some praise for its simple off-road abilities – much like the car of old.

THE enormous Audi Q7 is a car that, like the XC90 further up this list, truly captured the attention of many buyers with young families and brought customers to the Audi brand by the busload.

Among your comments was a note that the Q7 was the best all-round family car on sale today – and you may have a good point. The Q7 is immensely spacious on the inside, with plenty of room for you, your kids, their friends and probably the dogs, too.

The diesel-focused engine range makes it frugal, and quattro four-wheel drive keeps it on the road in all weathers. You also made particular note of the technology in the cabin, alongside the clever stuff underneath.

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Nissan 370Z

Jeep Cherokee

THE Nissan 370Z was dealt the difficult task of succeeding the popular 350Z. Did it achieve it? Just about.

Thanks to a larger 3.7-litre V6, the 370Z had enough power to back up its futuristic looks and a rear-wheel-drive experience that appealed to committed drivers. It also built on the 350Z’s reputation and improved it.

On top of that, the 370Z didn’t break the bank – despite its performance level. One dealer we asked said that the 370Z was ‘the best car for your money, and good to drive, too.’

Thankfully, the 370Z has managed to pick up where the 350Z left off, continuing the legacy of the famous ‘Z’ cars.

THE Cherokee is a compact SUV created by Jeep that aimed to offer even more luxury than the Wrangler.

First produced in 1984, it featured a boxy shape that incorporated some decent off-road technology that allowed the Cherokee to handle serious off-road terrain.

The Cherokee has grown to include an incredible amount of technology, as well as a range of economical engines. It still manages to retain the easily recognisable Jeep style, with the famous slat grille taking pride of place on the bonnet.

One dealer said: ‘Loved it! Good car to drive.’

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Citroen C3 Picasso

Seat Ibiza

THE Citroen C3 Picasso is an MPV created by the French carmaker to appeal to young families wanting more space from their car without losing any of the funky styling usually associated with smaller hatches.

Upon its launch in 2009, it was met with a positive response, with many appreciating the car’s high level of standard equipment. Not only that but it was also praised for the way it drove – something confirmed by one dealer who said that the Picasso ‘drives well and is a good family car’.

Still on sale today, the C3 Picasso is offered in a wide range of body trims and engines, meaning that, no matter what the budget, there’s a Picasso for everyone.

IT’S amazing to think that the Seat Ibiza has been with us longer than the Vauxhall Corsa, but Seat’s little hatch first hit the UK’s roads in 1984.

Since then, the Spanish supermini has improved from a boxy rival to budget Far Eastern offerings to a stylish genuine mainstream alternative that’s particularly – thanks to some rather fruity ‘Cupra’ models – popular among younger drivers.

The Ibiza’s qualities are obvious in your responses.

‘Value for money’ is a comment that features most often, regardless of the model in the range, while the youth appeal and sportiness of the FR and Cupra models factors highly, too.

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Seat Leon

Volvo V60

THE Leon is a far more recent arrival than its smaller sibling the Ibiza – in fact, it was the company’s first vehicle in this class, joining the Skoda Octavia and Audi A3 as a Volkswagen Group C-segment hatchback.

With the Golf as a base, there’s not a great deal that the Leon can get wrong – and many of your comments drew the comparison between the two cars, with the Leon being just as highly rated as the Golf for practicality, quality, driving manners and, with the Cupra models, amazing performance.

The ST estate model drew some responses for spaciousness and style, too.

As with the Ibiza, your primary focus was on the sheer amount of car you get for your money with the Seat Leon.

JUST like the Volvo V70 you’ll find lower down the list, the V60 is a vehicle that typifies the Volvo brand – a large, safe, reliable estate car.

Unlike the V70, the V60 gets some praise from you for the extra style, with the less restrained front end lending a more pleasing aesthetic impression on the road.

Otherwise, the reasons for putting the V60 on this list closely mirror those of the other two Volvos.

You say that it’s a reliable car that’s incredibly comfortable to drive and serves well as a great all-rounder for modern life.

Can’t say fairer than that.

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Fiat Punto

Jeep Wrangler

FIAT’S Punto is another one of those cars on the list that many of us will have experienced in our younger years, commonly found doing teenage things on back roads.

It’s still a car that appeals to the youth of today in its third generation, as you told us that the Punto’s average buyer was likely to be much younger than buyers of other models in the range.

Like those other cars, it’s a testament to the build quality that so many of the originals remain – despite their younger owners! You also told us that it was a nice car to drive and a good-looking vehicle inside and out, compared with sector rivals – so perhaps the youth appeal isn’t really all that surprising.

JEEP’S Wrangler was inspired by the time-honoured Willys Jeep of the Second World War and echoed its design brilliantly – most notably with its vertical bar front grille.

However, where the Willys was created to be an all-out off-roader, the Wrangler offered all manner of luxuries to appeal to the day-to-day driver.

First introduced in 1986, the Wrangler had all the off-road capabilities that true 4x4 enthusiasts would want, with the comfort of an SUV added on top.

At the time, it represented exceptional value, and as one dealer pointed out in our survey: ‘I made an amazing profit from it.’

A win-win situation for both retailer and consumer.

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WHEN it comes to hard acts to follow, Jaguar’s E-Type is one of the hardest.

Such is its enduring appeal that you’ll find it elsewhere on this Top 100.

By all accounts, the F-Type has succeeded spectacularly and it’s a car you love, as does the motoring press. Available as a coupe or a convertible, with automatic or manual gears and a range of engines from entry-level V6 to immense V8, there’s an F-Type for every taste and talent level.

Whichever model, you rated the performance and handling of the F-Type very highly, with the soundtrack from the engines coming in a close third.

Some comments also made mention of the added practicality (for the UK, at least) of the four-wheel-drive system.

THE Mustang might be simultaneously the oldest and newest car here.

First in production in 1964, the car didn’t hit UK showrooms until 2015 – where it’s been an instant hit.

Whether in coupe or convertible form, and with the full-fat V8 or the greener option 2.3-litre Ecoboost, your comments on the Ford Mustang just about wrote themselves. You made particular note of the car’s ‘awesome’ looks and style. Many of you are fans of the car’s special interior, but most of the comments were reserved for the soundtrack of the V8 engine.

It’s a car in great demand and you said that you sell every one you can get your hands on months in advance!

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Jaguar F-Type

Ford Mustang

Ford Galaxy

Citroen C3

NOT every car on this list has to be an aspirational vehicle, a mind-bending performance car or a premium model. Some are here just because they’re good at what they do – and the Galaxy is the standard bearer for these cars.

So many of you told us that the Galaxy was your favourite car to sell that we had to recount to check. Twice.

The reasons were pretty simple: when it comes to family cars, there’s none better. It’s been with us for 20 years and every generation tells the same story – when it comes to driving it about, the Mondeo-based Galaxy is comfortable and more enjoyable than really it has any right to be. Citing it as the ‘ideal family car’, your appreciation of the Galaxy was obvious.

THE C3 is one of Citroen’s most popular hatches, owing to its excellent amount of interior space and comfort.

It is also incredibly hassle-free to drive – something that is backed up by dealers who told us that it was ‘lovely to drive and cheap to run’. All of the things that make a small hatch perfect, then.

First revealed in 2003, it quickly spawned other spin-off models, such as the C3 Pluriel and C3 Picasso. A new model was issued in 2009 and built on the C3’s already high reputation.

With a range of engines and specifications, it really did encompass everything that people want from low-cost motoring.

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Nissan 350Z

Nissan X-Trail

THE Nissan 350Z first appeared in 2003 in coupe form and was inspired by the famous ‘Z’ cars of the early ’70s.

A two-seater sports car, it was driven by a powerful 3.5-litre V6 that could be sent through either a manual or automatic transmission.

A rather handsome-looking vehicle, it sold well across the world and proved to be equally as popular with general car enthusiasts and lovers of the Nissan brand.

Although something of a niche car, it was well received by dealers, too, who said it was ‘the best car for the money and good on performance’.

It comes in a striking orange colour, too – what’s not to like about that?

ALTHOUGH it may not be in the same league as the Qashqai, the X-Trail was one of the first crossovers to hit the market in the year 2000, fending off competition from the Toyota RAV4, the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the Honda CR-V. The X-Trail features All-Mode, a transmission transfer case that enables the driver to select between two- and four-wheel drive, and its bestselling engine is the 2.2-litre turbocharged common-rail diesel unit.

Now in its third generation, the X-Trail shares styling features with the acclaimed Nissan Qashqai and, according to one dealer, ‘will always be one of the best-selling SUVs on the market.’

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Skoda Yeti

Mercedes SLS

IT’S one of the best-received completely new cars by the motor industry in recent memory. The motoring press love the Skoda Yeti, the public love it and you’ve told us that you love it, too.

Popping up in 2009 and based on the Volkswagen Golf, the Yeti is an unashamed utilitarian car, with everything you need and nothing you don’t.

The all-round usefulness of the vehicle was one of the qualities that you highlighted in your responses, with the Yeti’s family credentials coming in for a lot of praise, too.

The frugal engines, smooth DSG gearbox and generally pleasant driving experience – with light off-road ability – were also worthy of note.

THE limited-edition, front-engined, two-seater sports car was the very first Mercedes to be designed entirely in-house by AMG. Featuring gull-wing doors and assembled mostly by hand, Mercedes itself described it as the spiritual successor to the 300SL Gullwing.

Launched in 2010, the SLS AMG has been transformed into a number of models, including the Desert Gold, the GT3, the Roadster, the Electric Drive and the GT Final Edition.

Among your comments, one dealer said: ‘Never have I seen such a beautiful car, which somehow manages to incorporate so much technology and innovation into an elegant package.’

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Mercedes A-Class

Bentley Continental GT

‘THIS car has single-handedly helped to lower the average age of the Mercedes buyer,’ one dealer explained.

The A-Class is still regarded as the entry into the Mercedes-Benz brand, but it’s by no means the least attractive or least capable model.

Another dealer told us he enjoyed selling the A-Class because ‘it’s got a little bit of everything. Buyers come into the showroom and they are instantly drawn to it.’

Another dealer added: ‘If you look back at the past two generations, the latest model is in a league of its own and, as well as pleasing A-Class owners, it’s done wonders for conquest sales.’

WHILE Bentley purists may not have been enthused by the car, thanks to its mass-production nature, the Continental GT brought the Bentley name back to the fore.

With V8 and novel W12 engines, the Continental GT certainly has all the power a Bentley should have and the quality standards are what you’d expect, too – responses to the survey included comments on the attention to detail, inside and out.

It’s an effortless Grand Tourer, and many of you commented that – thanks to its position as a status symbol and its all-round excellence – it’s a car that practically sells itself.

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Volvo XC90

Vauxhall Meriva

VOLVO has a reputation for safety and reliability – two qualities you told us particularly apply to the XC90. It never goes wrong, as one response put it.

The biggest Volvo has been something of a runaway success, with the first-generation car being extremely popular as a school-run vehicle.

The powerful diesel engines and four-wheel drive made it a car that would always get your kids to school when the weather turned – probably to their disappointment.

A recent new version has only worked to improve the XC90, and your responses said that the new car was also appealing to customers for its ride quality and drive.

WITH the Astra-based Zafira MPV proving successful, a smaller MPV based on the Corsa became necessary to the brand – and so the Meriva was launched in 2003.

The centre of a memorable advertising campaign with the ‘Little Dads’, the Meriva enjoyed a reasonable level of popularity, and you told us that customers were particularly taken by the value for money offered.

Like the Zafira, the Meriva came with clever interior seating, allowing the car to be configured in four- or five-seat modes – useful for separating a pair of squabbling teens – and the second-generation car added rearwardopening back doors.

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Citroen C5

Peugeot 207

THE C5 is one of the largest cars in Citroen’s model line-up. Launched in 2001, it was originally available as a five-door hatchback or estate and powered by the choice of 1.8, 2.0-litre straight-four or 3.0-litre V6 petrol engines, as well as 1.6, 2.0 and 2.2-litre direct injection diesel units.

The C5 is no longer offered as a hatchback and, instead, is solely available in the form of a three-box saloon or estate, resembling a little more of its German rivals than perhaps its loyal followers may like.

One dealer told us: ‘Once you’re a C5 owner, you tend to stay one. We have a very loyal customer following for this particular model and they say it’s because it does everything they want it to. It’s not fancy, it’s realistic.’

IT was largely unloved by the motoring press and – after the legend of the Peugeot 205 and the style icon 206 – it was a little disappointing.

But, by and large, the 207 was a decent car that probably deserved to be a little better remembered.

You certainly thought so, voting the 207 into 61st place of your favourite cars to sell, commenting on its reliability and affordability.

It was certainly versatile, with hatchback, estate and even a folding metal-roofed coupe-cabriolet version.

Sharing a number of engines with the Mini range, the 207 wasn’t short on under-the-bonnet fun either, particularly in the form of the 184hp 207 GTi.

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Fiat 500

Kia Sorento

GIVEN the explosive popularity of the Fiat 500, it’s a surprise that it hasn’t reached the higher orders of this list.

Coming along in 2007 on the wave of new retro, the little Fiat borrowed a lot of its looks from the classic rear-engined car, updated for the 21st century. Sharing underpinnings with the Fiat Panda, the 500 captured the imagination of city car buyers across the UK and was a massive success.

A range of economical engines, such as the TwinAir, helped its city car credentials, while performance fans were also catered for with the range of Abarth models. According to your answers to the survey, the 500 majors on driving fun and fuel economy – a rare mix!

THE Sorento barely seems to have been on sale for long enough to already be in its third generation, but like the other South Korean car on our list it has been a tale of incredible improvement.

The first-generation model in 2002 was something of a traditional large SUV and, in fairness, would have been tough to pick out in a crowd.

Subsequent models have exhibited the same rapid improvement as other models in the range, and the Sorento quickly became a handsome and versatile option in the seven-seat SUV sector.

In your responses, you let us know that the car’s unpretentious nature and reliability were what appealed to your customers.

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BMW Z4

Volkswagen Transporter

THIS class-leading sports car follows a line-up of BMW roadsters, including the Z1, 507, Z8 and Z3. It was the Z4 that replaced the Z3 in 2002.

Produced in both roadster and coupe form, it won a Design of the Year award in its debut year. Now in its second generation, the Z4 is built in the form of a coupe-convertible with a retractable hardtop roof and is also available with the iconic ‘M’ badge.

‘The Z4M is a stunning “Batmobile” car, with a good following,’ one dealer explained. ‘If you have a good example, which has been looked after well with low mileage, combined with that screaming straight-six engine, the car always sells itself.’

BASED on Volkswagen’s iconic ‘T’ lineage, the Transporter is now in its sixth generation – and is still as strong today as it was 60 years ago.

‘The T series has been around since 1950, and it’s this long and successful heritage that keeps it selling well today. Buyers love their vehicles to have a flavour of history about them,’ said one dealer.

Another dealer added that ‘what you find about the modern Transporters is that they are just as easy to customise as their predecessors – Transporter owners like to stand out from the crowd, and take it upon themselves to continue the “hippy” legacy set out by previous generations. They are great vehicles to spec and sell.’

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Citroen C4

Mitsubishi Shogun

THIS compact C-segment family car has been manufactured since 2004 and, mechanically, bears many similarities to the Peugeot 308.

‘You often find that customers draw parallels with the C4’s performance in rallying,’ said one dealer. ‘A major selling point for the C4 in its early days was the extensive use of equipment and technology.’

The C4 is yet another example of Citroen’s innovative ideas, which have always been ahead of their time and designed with the future in mind.

You told us: ‘The C4 is a great car to have on your used forecourt, because it’s aged well. Customers don’t feel as though it’s dated when they go out to test-drive one.’

‘BUILT to tackle anything’, Mitsubishi’s trusty 4x4 has developed a reputation for being one of the most popular vehicles in its class – not to mention one of the cheapest.

One dealer said: ‘The Shogun is a hell of a lot of car for the money. Priced from £29,634 for the short wheel base, it’s surprising just how much buyers can get for their money – and it looks the part, too.’

Another dealer added: ‘For me, the key selling point for the Shogun is its reliability. You can throw anything at a Shogun and it’ll handle it. However, it doesn’t just look like a muddy off-roader; it’s a stylish model that’s loaded with gadgets. For that reason, it pretty much sells itself.’

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Mercedes CLS

Audi RS 6

ORIGINALLY launched in 2004, the CLS is one of the youngest models in the Mercedes line-up. Created by American designer Michael Fink, it was produced to combine the ‘strong, emotive charisma’ of a coupe with the ‘comfort and practicality’ of a saloon.

Among your comments, one dealer told us the CLS ‘lives up to the expectations set out by Mercedes. Its size makes it the ideal business and family car, and its design, spec and comfort values pay testament to what the brand stands for.’

Another said: ‘The CLS 55 AMG and 63 AMG are two fantastic cars – and they don’t stick around in the showroom for long.’

A DERIVATIVE of the Audi A6, which you’ll find elsewhere in this list, the RS 6 got so many specific nominations that we had to create a separate entry for it. It’s easy to see why, too, thanks to the second-generation model.

The original RS 6 and the most recent iteration both use V8 power to great effect. Initial cars had 444hp from a naturally aspirated unit, while the newer ones have a 552hp twin turbo V8.

In essence a mid-sized executive car that was a Lamborghini underneath, the second-generation car was equipped with a 571hp V10 that – until the R8 came along – made it the most powerful Audi ever produced. In your opinion, it’s also one of the all-round greats.

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Mazda RX-8

Jaguar XK

WHILE everything else on this list is at least partly powered by a piston engine, Mazda’s RX-8 isn’t. Instead, it uses the extremely unusual rotary engine, a powertrain type that Mazda alone has persisted with since its appearance in a handful of cars in the 1960s and 1970s.

It’s not difficult to see why Mazda continues its love affair with the rotary engine, using it to power the 787B race car to a unique Le Mans victory in 1991. Despite the frailties of rotary, it creates a distinctive engine note, and the low weight allows for the RX-8 to be remarkably well balanced.

The sound and drive sold a lot of RX-8s for you, and you told us that just about every customer who sat in one would buy one.

JUST falling outside your Top 50 is the Jaguar XK. Arriving in 1996 as a replacement for the stunning, but highly flawed, Jaguar XJ, it wasn’t a car that was as initially well received as it probably ought to have been.

Sharing a platform with the Aston Martin DB7, the XK certainly had the credentials – and with newly developed V8 and supercharged V8 XKR options, it had the pace, too.

You let us know that you felt the XK was stylish and drove rather nicely, particularly in the supercharged XKR models.

Redesigned for 2006 by Ian Callum, the XK continued as Jaguar’s sole coupe offering, until the F-Type arrived in 2013.

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Renault Megane

Jaguar XF

‘IT was the TV advert about shaking your bottom which helped to drive sales for this one,’ said one dealer in our survey. ‘The Megane was always a relatively modest hatchback until its redesign of 2002, which inevitably helped to attract a new generation of customers.’

The friendly hatchback has been produced by the French carmaker since 1995, replacing the Renault 19, and it was in desperate need of a makeover.

It was in 2002 that the Megane entered its second stage of life, marking a fresh new start and bearing little resemblance to its predecessor.

One dealer explained that ‘it took a while for Renault to get the ingredients right, but they’ve got it spot on now’.

IN many ways, Jaguar’s XF didn’t have an especially tough act to follow after the largely disappointing S-Type – but even so, the British carmaker came up with an outright winner.

For a while, it was the smallest car that Jaguar offered, but also the most modern and stylish. Bringing what had been quite an old-fashioned image right up to date, the XF featured judicious use of modern materials.

Supercharged and V8 engine options kept it on the pace of its rivals, too – and some of you made specific mention of the XFR perfomance model.

A second-generation car arrived in 2015 and, with significant use of aluminium in the vehicle structure, the XF was lighter than the previous car.

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Land Rover Defender

Porsche Boxster

ARGUABLY the most iconic four-wheel-drive vehicle to ever leave the production line, the Defender’s long and unbeatable legacy of delivering the highest levels of performance, versatility and reliability lives on.

‘It almost broke our hearts when production ceased earlier this year,’ one dealer told us.

Originally launched in 1948, the Defender has been a war hero, a family friend and trusting companion, which you said ‘will never let us down’.

Built in Solihull, the Defender is another example of British manufacturing at its best, and UK car buyers ‘have always been keen to support its 68-year success story – there will never be a 4x4 like the Defender’.

WHILE it’s no shock to find the Boxster in your Top 100, it’s a little surprising to find it this far down the list – it is, after all, the car credited with saving the entire Porsche brand as a standalone company.

Although the 911 is inextricably linked with the company, the ‘eggsin-one-basket’ approach had its shortcomings, with Porsche sales falling dramatically from their 1980s heyday. The introduction of a cheaper and more conventional mid-engined car enticed the buyers scared of the 911’s reputation and brought the company back from the brink of a buyout.

Your responses certainly made mention of how much fun the Boxster is to drive, along with good margins on the second-hand models.

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Audi A6

Kia Sportage

THE A6 seems to have been with us for far longer than the 22 years its name has been in existence. It succeeded the Audi 100, as the marque shifted to an alphanumeric naming convention with the A8 the same year – and the first cars were little more than facelifted Audi 100s.

It’s been fighting one of the longest battles in the industry, as both the Mercedes E-Class and BMW 5 Series vie for sales in the same sector, but Audi has always brought its incredibly well-made and stylish interiors to the fray.

Our survey results included comments from you attesting to the A6’s space, quality and performance – particularly from the estate models.

ANOTHER phenomenal success for the Kia brand, the Sportage is a vehicle that shows off how the South Koreans have improved from producing fairly unremarkable cars to class leaders – especially when it comes to looks.

Now four generations old, after just over 20 years in the UK market, the first Sportage was based on Mazda’s E Series van. An improved second generation in 2004 eventually had production moved to Europe, before the third generation was also designed in Europe by Peter Schreyer, the man who eventually became Kia’s chief design officer.

With a recently released fourth generation that you enjoy selling and feel is great value for money, the Sportage is part of Kia’s reinvention.

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Skoda Octavia

Vauxhall Insignia

THE Octavia is a bit of a confusing car. Sitting in the small family class alongside the Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra and Volkswagen Golf, its saloon-like shape gives it the impression of being a larger car than it is.

In estate form, too, the Octavia has always been an impressively large vehicle on the inside, with a boot that’s almost second to none across all sectors. It doesn’t impact on cabin space either, which is close to best in class.

Based on the Golf, the Octavia brings all of the usual Volkswagen Group qualities to a less expensive package, leading it to myriad best family car awards across the motor industry. A car that leaps out of showrooms and a favourite among the UK’s police forces, it makes it into your Top 50.

VAUXHALL’S Mondeo-beater has always had to live a little in the Ford’s shadow. While the Mondeo’s name was once used to represent a significant part of the UK’s population during a general election, there’s no such fame for the Insignia.

Replacing the similarly shaped Vauxhall Vectra in 2008, the Insignia has proved to be a relatively popular car – especially among fleet buyers.

Your comments all centred on the same theme: the Insignia has plenty of kit, lots of room (particularly in the estate) and is inexpensive to buy and run. Ultimately, you think that the Insignia most of all represents a goodvalue car and it slots well inside your Top 50 as a result.

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BMW X5

Suzuki Swift

THE X5 marked BMW’s route into the SUV segment, featuring all-wheeldrive and the choice of a manual or automatic gearbox.

The first-generation model was launched in 1999 before it was replaced by a revised version in 2006, which was equipped with the brand’s signature xDrive all-wheel-drive system.

It was in 2009 that the ‘M’ performance variant made an appearance, which instantly made it more appealing.

You told us that ‘it’s a good all-rounder. You can’t fault BMW when it comes to build quality, safety, performance and driving pleasure – and the X5 manages to combine all of those selling points into a great package.’

BORN in the 1980s, the little Swift was originally badged as a Suzuki Cultus. Now in its third generation, the Swift has achieved quite a following – especially with younger buyers.

In October 2005, Suzuki launched the Sport version of the Swift in Japan, which arrived in Europe in September 2006. Turning out to be a hit with hothatch drivers, the Sport did wonders for sales.

Powered by a high-revving, 125bhp, 1.6-litre, naturally aspirated, fourcylinder engine with high lift cams, forged pistons and strengthened valve springs, you told us: ‘Both returning and conquest customers couldn’t wait to get their hands on them.’

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Mazda6

BMW 1 Series

MAZDA’S slightly awkwardly named 6 was born from the Ford Mondeo, back when the Americans owned a controlling stake in the firm.

By some accounts, it was even the slightly better car, particularly at the performance end, where the four-wheel-drive equipped and turbocharged ‘MPS’ could make a Mondeo ST220 driver feel a little daft at the traffic lights.

Now its own concern again, the Mazda6 has grown up and, while there are no longer any fruity power options, it still makes for one of the more surprising driver’s cars in the sector.

You told us that the 6 is reliable, comfortable and a good all-rounder.

No wonder you like selling them!

MANUFACTURED since 2004, the BMW 1 Series is regarded as one of the most popular models in the German carmaker’s range to sell.

Appealing to all age groups, while also boasting a well-equipped cabin and increasingly good driving dynamics, it’s really very difficult to pick a fault with it.

One dealer explained that ‘the 1 Series is a middle-of-the-road car, which sets a good standard and never fails to live up to expectations’.

Another dealer pointed out: ‘It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Whether your customer is looking for a classy car to travel to work in or a practical vehicle for the family, it’s got it all.’

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Volkswagen Corrado

Saab 900

GETTING you to open up about the Corrado was no issue at all.

The beloved sports car, which was designed by Herbert Schafer, was produced between 1988 and 1995. Stealing the hearts of dealers and customers, the three-door hatchback was originally conceived as a possible successor to the Porsche 944.

Featuring the signature box-shaped front end of its era, it was the Corrado’s looks that first attracted its buyers – and it’s still a looker today.

You told us: ‘The Corrado VR6 was a fantastic car. Selling them was a piece of cake and, even today, the Corrado is viewed as a real iconic sports car which is barrels of fun to drive.’

THE Saab 900 lived a relatively short but happy life. The compact, then luxury, saloon was produced from 1978 until 1998 in two generations.

The first-generation model, built until 1993, is known as the ‘classic’, while the later model is referred to as the ‘new generation’.

Like its predecessor, the 99, it featured a range of unique styling features, which – whether for better or for worse – helped it to stand out from other cars on the road.

Your key focus point of the 900 model was the fact that ‘it’s such a rare sight on the roads today, but it carries the reputation for being a cracking car of its time’.

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Mazda MX-5

Land Rover Freelander

IT’S the world’s best-selling small sports car, passing the millionth sale mark earlier this year with its fourth-generation model – and the MX-5 is pretty much the definitive sports car.

We could go on incessantly about the MX-5: the simple recipe that gave new life to the classic British two-seat convertible layout; the bulletproof and giddy engines; the highly communicative steering; the foolproof handling; the simple joy of manually throwing off the light roof for open-top motoring.

It’s all been said everywhere before and you agree – all of the responses that mentioned the MX-5 included the word ‘fun’!

JAGUAR Land Rover’s Freelander is the sturdy compact SUV which, according to you, ‘never gets old, even though production ended in 2014’.

It was produced by the British carmaker between 1997 and 2014, only reaching its second generation – the Freelander 2 – in 2007. Despite being replaced by the Discovery Sport in 2015, it’s still as popular in the used car market today as it was in the new car market five years ago.

You told us: ‘The Freelander never seems to fade away. For its time, it was well equipped and always attracted a similar buyer – the ones looking for a versatile car that’s not too big, but spacious enough for a family and all the parts that come with it.’

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Toyota Aygo

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

THE decision to produce Toyota’s quirky city car was made in 2001, when Toyota and PSA Peugeot Citroen teamed up to produce a small car and share development costs. Now in its second generation, you described the little Aygo as ‘one of the trendiest city cars on the market’.

Toyota revealed the completely redesigned Aygo in 2014 with the slogan ‘Go Fun Yourself’, in a bid to attract and be more accessible to younger buyers, which you told Car Dealer had been a success.

One dealer said: ‘The Aygo is such a good-looking car now, and buyers in the market for their first car love it – it’s practical, cheap to run and can be customised to reflect their own style.’

MITSUBISHI’S Outlander PHEV is the UK’s number-one plug-in hybrid.

Priced from £31,749, it’s great value for money and, thanks to its impressive towing capabilities, it’s a huge hit with caravan owners.

You told us: ‘The Outlander PHEV is by far one of the best cars to sell. It’s a spacious, versatile crossover with exceedingly low running costs and class-leading safety ratings.’

Having just passed 100,000 global sales, with more than a fifth of those in the UK, its upward trend shows no sign of abating. Your primary focus was on the SUV’s ability to raise the bar, adding: ‘The PHEV pays testament to the brand’s aim of transforming the driver experience as we know it.’

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Honda Jazz

Ford Escort

WHEN it comes to small cars, the Honda Jazz is very much the forgotten vehicle. It’s three generations old now and it’d be a struggle for many people to recall at least one of those models – but you rate it highly enough that it almost breaks into our Top 30.

Part-city car, part-MPV, the Jazz is a surprisingly versatile and practical little car that brings much of the Honda range’s better qualities – sensible design, good build quality, reliability and decent kit levels – into a package that comes in at around the same size as the Ford Fiesta.

Unsurprisingly, your responses to the survey centred on how its reliability and practicality appealed to customers.

IT may have become tired and drab at the end of its life – even a badly misused instance of the RS badge on the Escort RS2000 couldn’t save it – but the Escort was one of the great cars in its early years, and some of you told us they sold so well that you couldn’t get them in quick enough.

Born as a rear-wheel-drive family saloon, the Escort performed miracles on the rally stages of the 1970s, and even the shift to front-wheel drive for the third generation didn’t stem the enthusiasm – with the classic XR3 and RS Turbo becoming two of the cars of the 1980s.

Peak Escort, though, was the absolutely iconic RS Cosworth – a turbocharged 225hp and four-wheel-drive monster.

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Subaru Impreza

Jaguar E-Type

IT’S an unusual place to find the Subaru Impreza, squashed between the Jaguar E-Type and the Ford Escort, but your responses put the famous Japanese performance saloon into our Top 30.

The Impreza practically sold itself in the mid-1990s, adorning bedroom walls across the UK thanks to incredible scenes on the rally stage of the then Network Q RAC Rally. It also forced a change in UK policing when the car fell into the hands of criminals, as the car the police couldn’t catch on road precipitated the roll-out of police helicopters!

Those who nominated the Impreza told us how much you liked the car yourselves, never mind selling them!

THERE’S almost nothing that can be written about the E-Type that hasn’t already been said. Famously (if controversially) the first 150mph road car, the car that Enzo Ferrari once described as the most beautiful in the world and the classic car that defines all classic cars, the E-Type is as British as queuing, ermine and the Last Night of the Proms.

With the long bonnet covering a gorgeous straight six or, for later cars, the wonderful V12, the E-Type makes a noise just as characterful as the exterior looks. It’s little wonder that it’s so popular as a hire car for weddings – or that it was among your responses, which almost univerally focused on the looks and its iconic nature.

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Toyota Prius

Honda CR-V

LAUNCHED in 1997, the Prius paved the way for modern hybrids, becoming the world’s first mass-production hybrid. Now in its fourth generation, the car continues to provide a benchmark for manufacturers across the globe, as they work to reduce their carbon footprint.

You told us: ‘Because of its exemption from congestion charge and vehicle tax, not to mention its amazing fuel efficiency and bullet-proof reliability, the Prius is one of the easiest cars to sell.’

According to our survey, you also said that the Prius ‘is now associated with the image of a UK taxi driver. However, customers, especially returning ones, struggle to find a better package.’

HONDA’S CR-V is one of the longest-lived SUV models available in the UK today. Built in Swindon for the UK market, the CR-V is getting on for 20 years old now, spread across four generations.

The original model was very much of its time, equipped with a modest four-cylinder petrol engine. The side-opening rear door with boot-mounted spare wheel is just about as 1990s as you can get.

Subsequent cars have refined the recipe to the current CR-V, which is large, practical and diesel. Perhaps some of the fun of the first cars has gone by the wayside, although you told us that it’s a reliable car and a good all-rounder, particularly in four-wheel-drive specification.

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Audi A5

Volkswagen Passat

ALTHOUGH a lot of the models in our list cover a wide range of cars under the same badge from very old to very new, the A5 is one of the newest names here. Your responses to the survey included comments on the car’s reliability, looks and high specification.

Created in 2007, the A5 is a dedicated coupe version of the more venerable A4, providing direct competition to BMW’s 3 Series coupe and the Mercedes C-Class coupe.

The A5 is available in coupe, cabriolet and five-door hatch form now, and can be specified with the same range of engines you’ll find in the A4 range, including the rather vigorous 4.2-litre V8 for the RS 5 model.

IT’S easy to forget that the trusty Volkswagen Passat has been powering along our roads since 1973. The large family saloon has been developed across eight design generations and is still considered to be one of the leading contenders in its segment.

You told us that the Passat is ‘a reliable and very popular car, which has retained a reputation for being a trustworthy runner and great value for money, for generations’.

Although it may not be as easy on the eye as its fellow German rivals, you described the Passat as ‘bold yet recognisable’. You also told us that it’s known for ‘being a refined car that ticks all of the right boxes’.

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Vauxhall Zafira

Audi TT

THE Zafira wasn’t the first to the car-based seven-seat MPV party, but it was one of the cleverest.

Based on the fourth-generation Astra hatchback, the Zafira brought all of Vauxhall’s traditional values, but added in the very smart Flex 7 seating system that allowed it to be a practical five- or seven-seat car all of the time.

It’s a system other manufacturers have scurried to match, but the Zafira remains the genesis – and your comments mainly centred on how great the model was for large families.

In later years, Vauxhall even added a performance VXR model to the range, making it a very strange but appealing 144mph all-rounder.

STYLE and the Audi TT go hand in hand. In fact, it originated only as a styling exercise for the motor show circuit, but it proved so popular that the car was pushed into production and quickly became a status symbol car, despite the relatively low list price.

That cool shape soon proved to be its undoing though as, at the higher road speeds common in Europe, the TT became prone to leaving the Tarmac and was recalled for suspension and aerodynamic modifications.

It hasn’t harmed the TT’s image though and, despite coming up for 20 years old, it’s one of the UK’s most popular sports cars. You commented on the ‘stunning’ looks and the quality of the drive.

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Vauxhall Astra

Ford Mondeo

THE Astra seems to have been with us forever and, while it can be forgiven for anonymously going about its business in the face of the huge sales of the Ford Escort and Ford Focus, there’s no doubt it’s been a massive success.

First arriving as a replacement for the Viva, the Astra was Vauxhall’s first front-wheel-drive car and based on the fourth generation of Opel Kadett.

Subsequent generations have refined that initial two-box design, and the current Astra is one of the smartest-looking cars in the sector.

When it comes to the recent cars, you told us that it was packed with useful technology, but general responses to the Astra focused on fuel efficiency and ease of sale.

ONCE used to define a huge swathe of the voting population, the Ford Mondeo may have been the car most closely tied to the British mindset more than any other for more than a decade.

Instantly popular as it replaced the somewhat amorphous Sierra, the Mondeo – named by Ford to reflect its intent to position it as a car for the world, from the Latin mundus – has always been a sharp-looking car that handled superbly, fulfilling functions for both fleet and the family man.

It was always going to make our Top 100, and you felt that it was a good family car that never had any trouble selling – but it’s a surprise it isn’t positioned higher in the list.

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Citroen DS3

THE Citroen DS3, available as a hatchback and cabrio, is one of a few spritely young contenders to make the best-selling list.

Launched in 2010, it’s arguably still in its infancy, but already a star in its own right.

Thanks to its unique styling and endless customisation options, the DS3 has become one of the most desirable hatchbacks on the market today. Since its launch, 83,930 units have been registered across Europe.

In 2016, the DS3 was facelifted and relaunched as a brand in its own right. The DS range follows in the footsteps of the iconic DS of the 1960s and is considered the premium sub-brand of the French carmaker.

The DS3 was named ‘Car of the Year’ in 2010 by Top Gear Magazine, and in 2013 it became the most-sold premium subcompact car, with a 40 per cent market share in Europe.

A number of special-edition models have been launched under the DS3 badge, including the DS3 Racing variant. Like BMW’s Mini, the DS3 is viewed as an accessory and fashion statement, rather than simply a means of getting from A to B. ‘The styling of the DS3 is unique and that’s the first thing people notice about this car,’ said Ollie Nurse, sales manager at Yeomans Citroen in Fareham. ‘People notice the DS3 on the roads. They see the car, think it looks gorgeous and then come into the dealership to drive one.

‘They come in to find out if it lives up to their expectations for practicality, ride comfort and economy – and it does.’

Nurse added: ‘There’s more to the DS3 than just its striking design. DS seems to have got the package just right.’

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Mercedes E-Class

THE E-Class is considered a newbie to the Mercedes-Benz range, with the first example produced in 1993.

Since then, the E-Class saloon and estate have been considered Mercedes-Benz’s best-selling models, with more than 358,595 sold by 2015.

The second-generation E-Class, launched in 1995, managed to single-handedly pull the mid-range Mercedes into the upper end of the luxury market. It was still offered as a six-cylinder model, but an increase in prices raised its profile. This was bolstered by a new generation in 2003, which included both visual and mechanical upgrades.

Over the next five years, the E-Class evolved into one of the best-looking cars in the range. Its facelift of 2013 was regarded as one of the most expensive mid-life refreshes in the history of the automotive industry, costing nearly £700,000.

‘The E-Class has really upped its game over the past 10 years,’ said Luigi Iannaccone, sales executive at Hughes Mercedes-Benz in Aylesbury.

‘It’s always been a good seller because it’s a great size – not too big and not too small – and an ideal family car. It’s a car that meets everyone’s needs, and the latest model looks much sharper, helping to attract younger buyers to the range.’

The new E-Class looks to have taken styling characteristics from the S-Class and is powered by in-line four- and sixcylinder engines.

It also receives the latest autonomous driving technology, meaning it’s capable of piloting itself up to speeds of 130mph.

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There’s more to the DS3 than just its striking design

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The E-Class has really upped its game over the past 10 years

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Audi A3

IT’S amazing to think what a short lifespan the Audi A3’s had, given how accomplished it is.

With just over 480,000 cars sold since its launch in 1996, the A3 has been one of Audi’s most versatile best-sellers, with diesel and petrol power units ranging from a 1.0-litre three cylinder to a 3.2-litre V6 – and even electric power with the current e-tron model.

When we spoke to Jamie Carter, sales executive at Cambridge Audi, he commented on the versatility. ‘It ticks a lot of boxes, so it attracts quite a big audience, particularly in the Sportback model. It’s got a big boot, can comfortably fit four adults, a variety of engines – it really is a hot seller,’ he said.

So far, there have been three generations of the Audi A3, with the latest car released in 2012 and recently updated (which we’ve driven and you’ll find elsewhere in this magazine). As you’d expect from an Audi, the A3 is available with the quattro four-wheeldrive system, but unlike other models, this is a front-wheel-drive biased Haldex system to account for the transverse-mounted engine, rather than the Torsen type of the longitudinal engines in larger Audi models.

Carter also notes the attraction of quattro for customers, adding: ‘The quattro isn’t just for snow or offroading. It’s in its element when the roads are greasy just after it’s rained or while it’s raining. It’s there helping you out, keeping you from spinning or sliding. Most of the time, you won’t even know what it’s doing!’

The four-wheel-drive system is put to great effect in the S3 and more recent RS3 Sportback performance models, the latter of which can polish off a 0-60mph sprint in less than five seconds.

Honda Civic

HONDA’S Civic is one of the most popular cars worldwide, with more than 30 million produced since 1972.

Early models of the Civic had something of a fuddy-duddy image – it shared a lot with the Rover 200 of the day – despite a more youthful appeal in its native Japan.

Daniel Flude, sales executive at Gilder Honda Sheffield, commented: ‘The stigma of the older person’s car is disappearing. With cars like the Civic Sport, it’s appealing to a different generation – but they’re keeping the qualities that were there originally, too. People from 18 up to those in their 80s find it a very easy car to use.’

Subsequent generations sought to bring younger buyers in, and the Civic was responsible for fetching over the iconic Honda ‘Type R’ badge, providing incredible specific power outputs of 100hp per litre or more, thanks to the VTEC variable valve-timing trickery.

Despite what you may perceive as huge stresses on the engine, Honda has never had to report a single mechanical failure on a VTEC engine – even on cars such as the 306hp turbocharged Civic Type R. This approach to technology can be found elsewhere on the Civic too, as Flude tells us: ‘Customers love the technology of the Civic and its flexibility. The Magic Seat system makes it a TARDIS of a car, with plenty of space, and they’re really well-made cars, too.’

According to SMMT figures, Honda has sold nearly 600,000 examples of the Civic in the UK since 1996 – in hatchback, saloon and estate models – making it the sixth most popular car in your Top 20 by sales.

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Customers love the technology of the Civic and its flexibility

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Toyota Yaris

THIS supermini has been on our roads since 1999. Whether you believe it or not, the name Yaris is derived from Charies – the singular of Charites – the Greek goddess of charm and beauty. Some may argue that the Yaris doesn’t represent much in the way of visual beauty, but it’s certainly a ‘charm to drive’, according to one dealer who took part in the Car Dealer survey and said: ‘The Yaris is the ideal first car for new drivers and this makes it a cracking little car to sell.’

The little Yaris had a tough act to follow as the successor to the Starlet, which is why Toyota aimed to make it as modern as possible in appearance and in its application of the latest technologies.

The second-generation model was launched in 2005 and chief engineer Kousuke Shibahara focused on developing a car that remained faithful to the model’s DNA of clever packaging, ride comfort, interior space and versatility. In 2011, the third-generation model was launched, once again available in the form of a saloon or hatchback. Still regarded as one of the most compact cars in its class, the Yaris also scored its second successive five-star performance rating in crash safety.

Demand was so strong that Toyota’s production facility in France achieved the production milestone of two million units in October 2011. This meant there were now more Yaris models on the road in Europe than any other car in Toyota’s history.

The SMMT says 516,210 units have been registered in Europe since 1999. Continuing an upward trend, the Yaris Hybrid arrived in July 2012 and was dubbed the most technically advanced derivative in the model’s history.

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Nissan Qashqai

DUBBED the best-selling compact crossover on the market, the Nissan Qashqai is draped in accolades. It’s been named ‘Best Small SUV’ two years running and was first crowned the What Car? ‘Car of the Year’ in 2014.

The quirky SUV has been produced by the Japanese carmaker since 2006 and is only in its second generation. The first-generation model alone sold more than 1.24 million units in its seven-and-a-half-year production run.

The Qashqai has been built at the Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK plant in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, since the start, with the carmaker investing significant funds in the future of car production in Britain.

By December 2007, Nissan had sold around 100,000 examples of the Qashqai across Europe, with more than 200,000 annual units sold on the continent, excluding Russia, every year since its facelift in 2010.

‘One of the key selling points for the Qashqai is the fact it’s so versatile,’ said Matthew Holcombe, sales director at JFE Nissan in Exeter. ‘It’s led the way in the evergrowing SUV market since its launch in 2006, and every change, tweak or facelift has made all the difference – it’s on an upward trend.

‘The retention of existing owners is phenomenal and you’ll find they always say the same thing: “Why step away from something so good?”

‘You also find that buyers are keen to support British car manufacturing and be a part of the Sunderland success story.’

Holcombe added: ‘The Qashqai is packed with equipment from standard and, on PCP, customers benefit from affordable monthly payments as well as low running costs.’

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The Yaris is the ideal first car and this makes it a cracking little car to sell

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It’s led the way in the ever-growing SUV market since its launch

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Mercedes S-Class

THE S-Class was formerly known as the Sonderklasse – which in German means ‘special class’. It’s one of the brand’s flagship models, and the first official model was introduced in 1972. However, its roots date back as far as 1954, when the W180 ‘Ponton’ was released in the form of a six-cylinder saloon, coupe and convertible.

Boasting a history that dates back more than 50 years, the S-Class continues to serve as Mercedes-Benz’s range-topping model.

In fact, the S-Class alone has debuted many of the carmaker’s technological innovations – from drivetrains and gearboxes through to interior features and safety systems – and has been labelled as one of the world’s best-selling luxury saloons of all time.

‘The Mercedes S-Class is renowned for being one of the most comfortable cars on the market, behind brands such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce,’ said Luigi Iannaccone, sales executive at Hughes Mercedes-Benz in Aylesbury. ‘When it comes to in-car luxury and driver comfort, buyers always tend to go for the S-Class over BMW and Audi.’

Now in its sixth generation, launched in 2014, the S-Class features a bolder, more sculpted appearance, and it doesn’t fall short of gadgets to get to grips with inside – features such as a gesture-responsive touchpad became available after the debut of the outgoing model. Magic Body Control, which can ‘read’ the road ahead and communicate with active suspension to predict uneven road surfaces, also made its debut on the sixth-generation model.

According to the SMMT, 50,422 units of the S-Class have been sold since 1996.

Audi R8

ORIGINALLY little more than a concept car for touring the show circuit, the Audi R8 is one of the most unusual production decisions in modern motoring – an established manufacturer with no supercar history opting to put a supercar into production.

‘The R8 typifies Audi in general,’ Gareth Carlile, sales executive and R8 specialist at East Kent Audi told us. ‘Although it’s a supercar, it just feels like a normal car when you drive it – until you put your foot down.’

The R8 name harks back to Audi’s hugely successful R8 LMP race car, which won 63 of its 79 international race series, including five out of five factory entries to the Le Mans 24 Hours, though the two cars share nothing beyond the name – the roadgoing R8 is four-wheel drive, for example.

Carlile added: ‘A lot of people are very keen on the quattro four-wheel drive. It’s almost a brand within the brand.’

Developed from the same basis as the Lamborghini Gallardo – another Volkswagen Group vehicle – the R8 first arrived on the scene with a 414hp 4.2-litre V8, as found in the Audi RS 4 and Audi S8, but was later equipped with the Gallardo’s ferocious 5.2-litre V10.

The second generation of R8 was born on the race track, completing the entire 2015 season as a racer before becoming available to customers. Exclusively equipped with the V10 option, the R8 became the first car in the world to be available with laser headlights, after the original car was the first to use LED headlights. According to the SMMT’s figures, nearly 4,000 R8s have been registered since the car arrived in the UK market in 2007.

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It just feels like a normal car when you drive it – until you put your foot down

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Hyundai i10

IT might be a surprise to find a Hyundai so far up this list – and the smallest Hyundai at that – but this car represents some of the most incredible improvements made by any brand.

Hyundai’s original city car for the UK market was the Atoz and it’s fair to say that it was not especially well received, portraying a particularly geriatric impression. It lasted just two years before being facelifted into the Hyundai Amica, which fared little better.

The i10 picked up the mantle in 2007 and it was immediately apparent just how much better it was than its predecessors. With an exterior design by former BMW 3 and 6 Series designer Thomas Buerkle, the i10 was clearly a vastly improved aesthetic proposition, carrying with it superior equipment levels and interior quality, and retaining Hyundai’s excellent reputation for build quality.

Lee Joel, the general sales manager of Burrows Hyundai Sheffield, told us: ‘It’s a great city car. It’s well built, spacious, reliable and very well specced. It competes in a tough sector but it’s a mature car, and the five-year warranty is a big appeal to a lot of people.

‘A lot of our buyers are downsizing, but one thing they don’t want to lose out on is build quality, and that’s what we find people like with the i10.

‘It represents what Hyundai is about today.

It’s come on leaps and bounds, and the i10 was really the first of the range to embody that. Sometimes if you don’t tell people it’s a Hyundai they wonder what it is!’

It shouldn’t be so much of a surprise that you voted it into the Top 20 and sales stand at a creditable 178,629, according to SMMT figures – nearly 18,000 a year.

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BMW 5 Series

MANUFACTURED by BMW since 1972 and now in its sixth generation, BMW has sold 350,804 units of the 5 Series since 1996.

It’s the German carmaker’s second best-selling model after the 3 Series, and is reported to have accounted for around 50 per cent of BMW’s profits in 2010.

‘The 5 Series always sells well,’ said Jamie Caple, creative director of Caralot in Derby. ‘It’s well equipped, just the right size and features a strong line-up of engines across the range.

‘It’s not too big and it’s not too small and, from a used proposition, it’s a relatively affordable way into a prestigious vehicle.’

In January 2008, the five-millionth 5 Series, a 530d saloon in Carbon Black Metallic, left the production line. Based on the 7 Series platform, the outgoing 5 Series gained new suspension on the front and rear in 2011, and the interior marked the return of the centre console being angled towards the driver, which has always been a common styling feature in BMW cars.

However, opinions remain divided about the external appearance of the 5 Series, with some arguing that it’s too bland and conservative in comparison to its predecessor.

It does get more exciting when you introduce the M-badged version, though. Under the bonnet of the M5 is a twin-turbocharged V8 engine with more than 550bhp.

‘The 5 Series has certainly captured the imagination of Caralot buyers since we first opened in 2010. It’s stylish and it’s a good solid car,’ added Caple. ‘M5 is a completely different kettle of fish – pop it into “M Mode” and it becomes a monster.’

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It represents what Hyundai is about today. It’s come on leaps and bounds

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It’s just the right size and features a strong line-up of engines

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Mercedes C-Class LAUNCHED in 1993, the C-Class was the smallest model in Mercedes-Benz’s line-up before the A-Class arrived in 1997. In 2000, the second-generation model put in an appearance, with the third and fourth generations arriving in 2007 and 2014. Since 1996, the C-Class has racked up 551,262 registrations, according to the SMMT. The C-Class always received tough competition from BMW’s 3 Series and the Audi A4 – the three Germans have been renowned rivals since the very start.

Yet it’s still hard to pinpoint exactly which brand comes out on top, since they all perform well in their own individual categories.

In terms of build quality and appearance, the C-Class was somewhat behind its rivals.

Over the past 16 years, though, the carmaker has managed to pull its socks up and turn its image around. In fact, it’s now one of the most stylish and popular executive saloons on the market.

The current-generation model was the first car to use the Modular Rear Architecture (MRA) platform. The structure is significantly lighter and stronger than the former, since it’s made using aluminium and high-strength steel, resulting in a 100kg weight reduction.

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as well as inline four- and five-cylinder diesel units. Buyers tend to go for the C-Class over an Audi A4 or BMW 3 Series because of the sense of status it brings to everyday commuting – not to mention the attention to detail in the cabin.

What’s more, the C-Class has always managed to hold its residual value and, according to the dealers, this is one of its key selling points.

‘In my opinion, the C-Class is a stunning and very elegant car,’ said Alexis Cassey, partner at Prestige Diesels & Sports Limited in Portsmouth. ‘It’s not as sporty as the A-Class or as luxurious as the S-Class, but it appeals to buyers

in the middle of the market. Mercedes has successfully captured the sporty look of the brand, which appeals to younger buyers, and it works well – we’ve sold a lot of C-Class models over the years.’

Cassey added: ‘The C-Class is an all-round good car – the fuel economy is great, too. Buyers, especially those in the used car market for a diesel, are always looking for a comfy commuter that’s good on fuel and great to look at – and the C-Class ticks all those boxes. It’s built well and it’s reliable.

What’s more, it offers great value for money. It looks a lot of car for the money it’s worth.’

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The C-Class is an all-round good car – the fuel economy is great, too

9

Vauxhall Corsa THE Vauxhall Corsa took over from the Vauxhall Nova (itself, confusingly, sold on the continent as the Opel Corsa) as the Luton brand’s small car offering in 1993, instantly taking up where its popular predecessor left off.

By just about any measure you’d care to think of, the Corsa has been a phenomenal success. However, up against the otherworldly sales figures of the Ford Fiesta, there’s always been a sense of the car playing second fiddle. Even so, with 1.8 million sales since 1996, according to the SMMT, the Corsa is the third bestseller on this list – barely behind the Ford Focus. Even today it routinely battles with the Focus for second spot, achieving it in 2015’s record year.

We spoke to Jamie Sunderland, sales executive at Eden Vauxhall Fareham, who commented on the Corsa’s popularity. ‘The Corsa’s always been the highest volume seller for us.

It opens itself up to different walks of life, whether you’re just starting out and need a car with low insurance, through to a more elderly person who just needs a car for round town,’ he said.

Throughout the four generations of the car, the Corsa has always offered the same sort of deal.

The dependable exterior design gives way to something of a no-frills interior, both of which are aimed at withstanding

the horrors of day-to-day life on the UK’s roads. Like the Fiesta, the Corsa has been the first car for so many of us in our collective youth, and it’s testament to its build that there are so many old Corsas

left after years of abuse by mechanically unsympathetic teens.

Even today, the little Corsa is subject to the pros and cons of being ‘the ideal first car’, but it manages to do it well.

There has always been a particular appeal of the Corsa to the teenage market. The Nova was popular among the boy racer crowd, so the Corsa had to capture the attention of that market, and with the Corsa GSi, Vauxhall hit the mark – the Lotus-developed C16XE 1.6-litre petrol engine produced 110hp and kept the Corsa on the tails of the Fiesta XR2i.

Later, Vauxhall produced the Corsa VXR as part of the VXR performance brand that had started off with the midengined VXR220. The Corsa VXR was equipped with a turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol engine producing 189hp, capable of propelling the little Vauxhall to 60mph in just 7.2 seconds, with a further ‘Nürburgring Edition’ car in 2011.

Sunderland added: ‘It’s very common for someone to come in and make us aware that a Corsa has been handed down the family from grandparents to teenagers – they’re sturdy things that have stood the test of time.

‘You do tend to find that people start off in a smaller car, have a good experience with the brand and move on to different models that we produce, then come back to a Corsa later in life.’

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They’re sturdy things that have stood the test of time

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Mini Hatch THERE was no doubt that the modern Mini Hatch was going to make an appearance in the Top 10 best sellers list.

Introduced in the year 2000, the modern Mini, under the original marque, was BMW’s vision of what the reincarnation of Britain’s iconic small car should be.

Unlike Sir Alec Issigonis’ Morris Mini Minor of 1959, which used one platform that was remoulded and revised over 41 years, the modern Mini – now in its 16th year – is already in its third generation.

Manufactured in Cowley at Plant Oxford, where vehicle production has been in full swing for more than 100 years, the second-generation three-door hatchback was launched in 2006, with the outgoing model released in 2015. The convertible models were introduced in 2004, 2008 and 2015.

One dealer described the Mini as being ‘a car for all ages’, while another said: ‘It’s more than just a car; it’s an accessory, it’s a driver’s car and, more importantly, it’s a friend – ask any Mini owner and they will more than likely tell you that they’ve named their car.’

Infinite customisation options make the Mini one of the most bespoke and personalised vehicles you can own. This alone pays homage to its predecessor, which is renowned for being the car you can ‘make your own’ and customise without difficulty.

You told us that ‘no two Minis are the same’ and that was ‘a great selling point – especially for younger buyers who want to make their car resemble their own personality and character’.

Available in One, Cooper, Cooper S and John Cooper Works variants, with the option of petrol and diesel powertrains, the Mini Hatch can be a sensible first car, an economical commuter or the fullyfledged track car with all the credentials of a motor racing legend, which the classic Mini became in the early 1960s.

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and expanded, enabling it to stand out in what is the largest market segment of the automotive industry.

It was in 2006, when the secondgeneration Mini was launched, that the small car resembled more of BMW than it did Rover Group, dropping the problemriddled Midland gearbox and replacing it with the Getrag transmission and improving the overall quality of the car.

While the Mini was always offered with a four-cylinder 1.4- or 1.6-litre engine, it

was in 2011 that BMW’s 2.0-litre diesel joined the range. In 2014, the engines became turbocharged three-cylinders, with the exception being the 2.0-litre turbo diesel and petrol units.

More than five million original Minis were sold worldwide between 1959 and 2000, and in 2014 the BMW Mini lived up to expectations, as the three-millionth example rolled off the production line.

In total, 578,201 units of the Mini have been registered since 1996.

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It’s a driver’s car and, more importantly, it’s a friend

7

Audi A4

AUDI’S A4 seems to have been with us for decades, but it’s a relatively recent addition to the UK’s roads.

Succeeding the Audi 80 in 1995, the A4 is Audi’s mainstream executive car – competing in the same sector as the Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series – and while it’s behind both on outright sales, at just over 500,000 since the SMMT’s digital records began, it’s a car that you think of quite highly.

In broad terms, the A4 doesn’t necessarily stand out all that much.

The engine range, while broad enough to have something to suit pretty much any taste, is also derived from other stablemates.

‘The A4 is the best-selling car Audi makes,’ noted Andy Arnold, sales executive at Marshall Audi Plymouth.

‘When we get customers in with the older models, you can see that it’s an A4 underneath, but you can see the advancements in the body and engine technologies. Each time a new model comes out there’s not too much change, because it’s synonymous with the brand, but they are constantly making those engine and technology improvements to keep the A4 head and shoulders ahead.’

Where the package comes together for Audi is the interior. The A4 is consistently rated as the best cabin in the business, aside from out-and-out

luxury manufacturers. Arnold added: ‘The finish inside sets Audi apart from the competition. A lot of our customers say that rival brands are comparable, but they feel let down compared with Audi.

‘Audi’s going more towards simplifying things rather than having lots of buttons.’

With three body styles over its lifetime – the saloon, Avant estate and the cabriolet – the A4’s appeal has been pretty broad, particularly with quattro four-wheel drive offered on most models, making for an ideal family car for a British winter.

Arnold noted the attraction of quattro, too. ‘The quattro system has definitely been a bit of a draw for customers with the weather you get in this country.

With the quality of the UK’s roads, quattro helps you keep traction. We’re selling more and more of them, and the quattro system is part of the Audi brand’s heritage – we sell more cars with the system than rivals do with their four-wheel-drive systems.’

Performance car fans have been well catered for, too, with sporting S4 and wild RS 4 options available. The 444hp 4.2-litre V8 RS 4 of the previous generation was a particular highlight – especially in Avant form, which produced one of the great all-rounders.

Of the halo cars, Arnold remarked: ‘They’re quite niche vehicles, but when we have something like that in, it always creates a buzz at the centre for the staff and the customers. Seeing things like that on the road gets people into the brand, so we need those cars out there!’

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The finish inside sets Audi apart from the competition

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Range Rover A LEADER in four-wheel-drive machines, the Range Rover is the SUV that serves as Land Rover’s flagship model.

Launched in 1970, it’s only in its fourth generation, paying homage to a wellbuilt, bulletproof design that’s withstood the test of time.

‘The Range Rover is one of those cars that never fails to impress,’ explained one dealer. ‘The fact that it’s only in its fourth generation but has been around for more than 45 years pays testament to its faultless design and loyal customer base.’

The trusty off-roader is manufactured at the Solihull plant here in the UK, and the model line-up has been expanded to include the Range Rover Evoque and the Range Rover Sport.

After experiments carried out by the Rover Company in the early 1950s to create a larger model than the Land Rover Series, it was in 1967 that the Range Rover prototype was built.

The design was finalised in 1969, with 40 pre-production Velar engineering development vehicles registered on the road between 1969 and 1970.

The first-generation Range Rover, based on a body-on-frame design, was built between 1970 and 1996 and was only available in two-door style until 1981.

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of developing this large utility vehicle was to create a bold and basic warrior that was easy to maintain.

Four generations on and the Range Rover has been transformed. After 25 years, the second-generation model was launched in 1995, powered by an updated version of the Rover V8 engine or the option of a 2.5-litre BMW sixcylinder turbocharged diesel unit.

The third-generation model came in 2002 and saw the Range Rover move further upmarket, but it was the current fourth-generation model that saw the Range Rover become one of the most desirable SUVs on the market.

In addition, the Range Rover Sport, which was launched in 2004 and redesigned in 2014, and the Evoque, which went into production in 2011 and was launched as a convertible in 2016, strengthen the image of a diverse model that appeals to not only farmers but fashionmongers, too.

Another dealer added: ‘Buyers always feel a sense of power when they testdrive a Ranger Rover. It’s known for being a big hit among celebrities – even the Queen has owned a Range Rover or two. Once you’re behind the wheel, especially of an early example, you can forgive it its mechanical faults.’

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Even the Queen has owned a Range Rover or two

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BMW 3 Series ‘STYLISH yet subtle’ is how dealers have described this compact executive car, which has been manufactured since 1975.

As the successor to the 02 Series, it has been produced over six generations.

However, in 2013, the coupe and convertible models were badged as a 4 Series and were therefore dropped from the range.

The 3 Series was – and remains – BMW’s best-selling model, accounting for approximately 30 per cent of the brand’s annual total sales. According to the SMMT, the 3 Series has accumulated 959,934 new car registrations worldwide since 1996.

It became even more desirable with the introduction of the ‘M’ version – the E30 M3. It’s this power box that went on to become one of the most valuable M cars of all time, now fetching more than £40,000.

BMW released its E21 3 Series coupe in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. This alone nearly doubled the brand’s total sales figures in three years. Originally powered by four cylinders, the legendary straight six was added to the line-up in 1977.

‘The 3 Series is very much a driver’s car,’ said Dan Norris, MD of Munich Legends in West Sussex. ‘It’s spacious, it’s comfortable and there’s enough space to squeeze the family in, too.’

It was in 1982 that the secondgeneration E30 3 Series was born. This was the first 3 Series to gain a diesel unit, alongside the four-cylinder and the straight-six petrol powerplants. The 325iX variant was the first of the range to use all-wheel drive, paving the way for future variants, which came with a wealth of BMW firsts, making the 3 Series a pioneering car since the start.

The record selling year for the E46 chassis was 2002, when 561,249 examples were sold worldwide. It was up against some tough competition, including the Alfa Romeo 156, the Audi A4 and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, but always held its ground.

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with values rocketing to £20,000, or up to £70,000 for a CSL, for a cherished model with low mileage.

‘The E46 M3 is the benchmark to which every other car in its class is compared and it has a big community of owners,’ Norris said. ‘It’s the closest thing to a car that does everything, and it does it well without heavy running costs. You can take it to work and on the weekend drive the doors off it at Goodwood before driving it home. What’s more, you

can pick a good example up for £15,000.’

The fifth-generation 3 Series welcomed the 335i – the first of the series to be sold with a turbocharged petrol engine. It was the E90 M3 of 2007 that was powered by the S65 V8 engine. The currentgeneration 3 Series was launched in 2012.

The F30 and F31 series models marked the first time that the entire range used turbocharged engines. The M3 version was released in 2014, powered by the S55 twin turbocharged straight-six unit.

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It’s the closest thing to a car that does everything

4

Porsche 911 WHEN it comes to performance cars, there are few more polarising than the Porsche 911, but you’ve voted it as your fourth favourite car to sell.

There’s nothing quite like the 911 out there – at least not these days. The sports car recipe is quite a simple one for most manufacturers. You get a small, light car and put a big engine ahead of the driver or – if racetrack performance is your key – slightly behind the driver, fill it full of your most expensive materials, perhaps stick in a four-wheel-drive system to keep the (untrained) driver safe and off they go.

Porsche has been working to a different instruction book for more than 50 years and this determination has generated one of the most unique driving experiences of any modern car, delivering one of the greatest driver’s cars across its lifetime.

The 911 was born as a replacement for the Porsche 356 and, along with the Volkswagen Beetle, the cars can trace their roots to a single common thread in the three generations of the Porsche family: Ferdinand, Ferry and Butzi.

It’s no surprise then that the 911 started out as a rear-engined vehicle, with the flat ‘Boxer’ engine (two banks of cylinders pushing away from a common crankshaft) well out beyond the rear axle. The surprise is that it continues to be rear-engined when it’s a significant

engineering challenge to make this layout work at speed.

The 1980s revealed just how challenging this was. Inexperienced drivers would find the weight transfer in a

911 was markedly different than in regular cars and in their naivety would increase the risk of losing control by doing the wrong things. When the turbocharged 930 arrived, with a rather lumpen power delivery because of the nature of turbos of the day, the speed at which this happened increased noticeably and crashes became frequent enough for the 930 to be dubbed ‘the Widowmaker’.

Nevertheless, Porsche has valiantly persisted, and while the modern 911 is no harder to drive than a family hatchback, it delivers a sensation quite unlike anything else on the road or track when given free rein. With 44,000 sales since 1996, according to SMMT figures, it’s one of the best-selling performance cars too.

When we spoke to Alex Kennedy, the general sales manager at Porsche Centre Silverstone, he commented: ‘The car has followed tradition with the shape and the driving experience, but it’s also adopted newer technologies like turbocharged engines, PDK gearboxes, four-wheel drive, torque vectoring and ceramic brakes. It’s a car with one foot in the past but always an eye on the future.

‘If you’re a 911 person you stay a 911 person – and we’ve got people who’ve gone away to try something else and come back to the 911, and people on their 15th 911 because they change them every year.’

“

It’s a car with one foot in the past but an eye on the future

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VW Golf NOW in its seventh generation, the Volkswagen Golf is still regarded as one of the best sellers in its segment.

The small family car has been manufactured by the German carmaker since 1974. The iconic front-wheel-drive, frontengined Mk1 Golf was originally designed to replace the rear-engined, rear-wheeldrive Beetle.

To Volkswagen’s delight, it did just that, becoming the brand’s best-selling model and the world’s second best-selling model in 2012, with more than 29m units leaving the production line.

Built in various body configurations, including the three- and five-door hatchbacks, the two-door convertible, the five-door estate and five-door MPV, the Golf has always been a car for everyone – it’s big enough to ferry the family around safely and in comfort, but it’s also a nippy runaround for drivers in the market for a car that’s light on its feet.

‘That’s why everyone loves the Golf – it’s got a little something that suits the needs of every customer,’ said Umesh Samani, owner of Specialist Cars in Stoke-on-Trent. ‘It’s not too small, it’s not too big and it’s built a strong reputation for being a reliable family car with a sporty edge.

‘I grew up with the Golf and it’s a market leader in its segment, which other manufacturers benchmark their models against – it’s definitely my kind of car!’

It was in 1976 that Volkswagen began to build on the Golf range, introducing model variants such as the GTi and the diesel, followed by the Jetta saloon in 1979 and the convertible and Caddy pickup in 1980. Soon after in 1983, the Golf was remoulded into the Mk2, followed by the Mk3 in 1991, the Mk4 in 1997, the Mk5 in 2003, the Mk6 in 2008 and the Mk7 in 2012. While the Mk1 and Mk2 variants are the most sought after, it’s the thirdfourth- and fifth-generation models that you’ll still find frequently changing hands in the used car market.

‘It’s not difficult to sell a Golf,’ said Samani. ‘Everyone has a soft spot for a Golf. You’ll never find them stuck on your 142 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

forecourt for more than a week or two.’

Despite its age, the Golf hasn’t been dated by its years of wisdom. The Mk6 and outgoing Mk7 have racked up approximately 20,000 sales each every year for the past 20 years and, according to the SMMT, 1,277,189 Golfs have been sold worldwide since 1996.

Samani added: ‘Customers buy into the success story and long-standing history of the Golf, which, although is continually evolving, always manages to

retain its roots to the original.’ Another dealer in our survey told us that one of the key selling points of the Golf was its comprehensive range of equipment and affordable running costs.

‘The Golf is very well equipped from standard and you find that drivers are continuously impressed by its versatile usability and attractive economy figures – that’s for both business and retail buyers.’

The Mk7 Golf R is regarded as a ‘quick hatch with everyday practicality’.

“

Drivers are continuously impressed by its versatile usability

2

Ford Fiesta IT’S the British public’s favourite car, but it only ranks second when it comes to being your favourite to sell.

With 2.25 million registrations since the SMMT’s digital records began in 1996, the Fiesta is the car that truly drives Britain. ‘It’s our bread-and-butter car,’ said Glen Kenington, general manager at TrustFord Barnsley. ‘It’s the car that the majority of our customers want. It does everything that a large car would do in a small package that’s easy to look after and cheap to run.’

Initially approved by Henry Ford II in 1972, just after the launch of the Fiat 127 and Renault 5, Ford’s then-smallest car was developed under the project name ‘Bobcat’. Produced here in the UK, it was an immediate success, outselling its nearest rival – the Vauxhall Chevette – to become the UK’s best-selling car.

It’s a position it has held most years since, spending 30 of the past 40 years at the top of the UK’s sales charts.

Anyone who’s had experience with a Fiesta – and given the popularity with driving schools and mums and dads everywhere, that’ll be very many of us – can see why it’s such a well-regarded car.

‘Everybody knows someone with one or who’s had one, and in everybody’s family there’ll be someone who at some point has had a Fiesta!’ added Kenington.

While it’s traditionally been Ford’s

cheapest offering, a lot of thought has gone into making it drive just right – every Fiesta across every generation has had the perfect driving position for almost anyone. Despite a 40-year history across eight generations, this recipe hasn’t changed much since the first cars.

This familiarity keeps customers coming back. Kenington added: ‘We sell a lot of cars through Ford Options, and the majority of people who’ve had Fiestas will just renew and renew.

‘We’ve probably got people on their tenth Fiesta because they know what they can do.’ Ford has even exercised its performance magic with the small Fiesta

and created some memorable vehicles.

The classic XR2 and XR2i were the hot hatch of choice for the youths of the 1980s, with the Fiesta RS Turbo and later the RS1800 the smallest cars to wear the iconic Ford RS badge.

Kenington noted: ‘The performance models have been fantastic.

‘The Fiesta ST still sells brilliantly, the very first RSes were great cars and still make very good money now as people buy them to collect.

‘Now we’ve also got cars like the Black & Red and the Zetec S that look like performance cars, but they’re more affordable to run for young people.’

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It does everything a large car would do in a small package

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Ford Focus YOU wouldn’t have got terribly long odds against the Ford Focus topping the list in our survey – and it wasn’t an entirely close-run matter in the end.

Dermot Rafferty, general manager of TrustFord Northern Ireland, told us: ‘Focus was – and is – the benchmark for everything else in its segment. The key selling factors were not only its striking looks – it really did set the standards for its looks – but what really sold it was its driveability. No one ever test-drove a Focus and didn’t say “Wow!”’ The first Focus debuted independent rear suspension in the small family class.

The system, dubbed ‘Control Blade’, gave the Focus class-leading handling and lateral g figures.

While the Escort was looking and feeling a little old on the road, it was still a major name on the rally stages and the Focus had to follow its act there, too.

With legend and world champion Colin McRae at the wheel, the Focus WRC won its third rally and took McRae to second in the championship by 2001.

This performance on the rally stages led to Ford’s resurrection of the legendary RS badge for the Focus.

‘The Focus had something for everyone – from a single person looking for a three-door hot hatch or a five-door family car or an estate,’ said Rafferty.

For the second generation, much that made the original Focus such a good car to drive was kept. The more normalised styling didn’t attract quite so much praise as its bolder predecessor, but the larger Mk2 Focus was a much more practical proposition – and with the

latest generation of Duratec petrol and Duratorq TDCi diesel engines, a better car to live with.

Rafferty noted the Mk2 Focus engines as well. ‘Not only does the Focus have some excellent petrol engines, but the range of diesel engines gave those looking for economy some fantastic engines, too. The TDDi was in itself groundbreaking, but the TDCi with the second generation really did set the bar for diesel engines.’

High-performance engines were also available, with a very characterful fivecylinder engine borrowed from Ford’s Volvo brand. This turbocharged unit produced 222hp in the ST model, turned up to 301hp for the hotter RS model.

Retaining front-wheel drive, the Focus used a new ‘RevoKnuckle’ suspension system to minimise undesired torque steer with such good effect that an even more powerful version of the RS – the RS500 – was produced with 345hp.

Remarking on the importance of the more potent Focus models, he said: ‘The performance element of Focus provides a halo element to the marque, too. RS is a huge part of Ford’s heritage and the Focus again took what we already had with performance sports cars and lifted everything to another level with the introduction of the Mk1 Focus RS.’ Now in its third generation, the Ford Focus continues to dominate the UK’s sales charts. The SMMT’s figures note that almost two million Focuses have been sold in the UK, making it one of our favourite cars to buy alongside being your favourite car to sell. [CD]

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What really sold it was its driveability. No one ever test-drove a Focus and didn’t say ‘Wow!’

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FOCUS ON.

Top suppliers

Firms who can really help From warranties to paint protection, insurance to finance partners, it pays to work with the best

I

t was the Beatles who sang, ‘I get by with a little help from my friends’. And we all need some assistance to help our businesses run smoothly.

There’s one slight snag when it comes to picking suppliers to work with though – there’s almost too much choice out there !

Luckily though, and to help mark Car Dealer’s 100th issue, we have spoken to selected companies who are all sure they can assist.

Over the following pages, we feature eight of the best-known and most respected companies in the automotive sector, all of whom can rightly claim they have compelling propositions that you are almost certain to find appealing.

First up, and on the opposite page, we talk to AutoProtect, who boast a rich heritage in the motor trade. As many readers will know, AutoProtect provides insurance products and dealer warranties to vehicle manufacturers and retailers of all types and sizes. In the showroom, online and on the telephone, AutoProtect has the product range, resources, people and expertise to deliver class-leading service to its dealers and their customers.

Next up is Auto Volo – a privately-owned company dedicated to making online car buying and selling easier for dealers and customers alike.

As you will read, Auto Volo has been building on its brand presence with a strong consumer offering, driven by ongoing promotional pricing that will be made available to motorists in everyday locations that they visit frequently.

Barclays is next on the list, with the bank looking to build lasting relationships with dealers. ‘With dedicated support and flexible products that help you get more sales over the line, we could be your perfect match,’ the company says. iVendi is a name familiar to the readers of Car Dealer and boss James Tew reflects on the changes to the automotive landscape over the past

by DAVE BROWN @CarDealerDave

eight years. ‘Being at the cutting edge of this rapidly occurring shift, we at iVendi see new developments on an almost daily basis,’ he says.

Next we chat to Plan Insurance, who are well-placed to assist car dealers with the task of getting comprehensive cover in place to protect their businesses from the risks they face. A family company, they are very well thought of, with truly impressive feedback ratings.

The WMS Group, on page 157, explain how they are developing and expanding their famous ‘Safe and Sound’ scheme. Endorsed by motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss OBE, Safe and Sound was named used car product of the year 2015 and

encompasses a seven-element motoring package, which is supplied to customers free of charge.

GardX International are next up, and say that their range of products sets the company apart from other suppliers. Famed for paint protection, the company has expanded and diversified impressively over recent years.

Last but by no means least are Warrantywise, who explain just how much motorists can potentially save by protecting their car with a warranty from the firm. As with all our suppliers, what they say makes perfect sense.

FEATURED SUPPLIERS AutoProtect

Auto Volo

Barclays

iVendi

Plan Insurance

WMS Group

GardX

Warrantywise

A company that truly understands a dealer’s life.

A credible alternative platform to display stock.

Partner Finance can help you sell more cars.

Times have changed – you need to change too!

Quality service from a highly regarded family firm.

Proud to offer one of the best used car warranties.

Wide range of products to help you make money.

Benefit from the UK’s highest level of cover.

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FOCUS ON.

Top suppliers

Quality service counts every time AUTOPROTECT

A

W: autoprotect.co.uk

high-quality, service-oriented supplier can add far more to a dealer’s business than just its products/services. AutoProtect does just that, helping dealers in their sales and marketing in the showroom and online, compliance guidance and much more, bringing it all together in one fast, efficient and quietly effective package. For example, should a customer make a claim under the Consumer Rights Act that you disagree with, it’s good to know that our warranties provide the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service that all dealers are now obliged to provide.

We know what you’re looking for Service is a differentiator for dealers and the service they receive from a supplier can impact their performance.

It is all too easy to focus upon price as the key

T: 01279 456600

feature in business; it is not. Consistently we see online retailers such as John Lewis and Amazon reference service as the true differentiator.

Speed, a capacity to offer online exchanges and brand reputation matter more than just price. As business guru Tony Alessandra once famously said: ‘Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.’ Service quality is central to the way in which AutoProtect cares for both its dealers and their customers.

A wide product line-up that includes asset protection, MBI/warranty, paint protection and service plans, enables dealers to access all of the main added-value services and consistently high service via one IT platform through just one provider. Speed and consistency are gained which makes a dealer’s life easier.

More than just the day-to-day operational

support, AutoProtect continues to stand side-by-side with its dealers developing its products, business solutions and support. Help is on hand to support dealers through ever-evolving regulatory change; new technologies such as i-Claim are accelerating the payout process and imaginative thinking and tools are available to ensure dealers can embrace the move by consumers towards digital purchasing.

In the showroom, online and on the telephone, AutoProtect has the product range, resources, people and expertise to deliver class-leading service to its dealers and their customers.

AutoProtect’s focus, borne of a rich heritage in the motor industry, where we understand the daily challenges of dealer life, combines great products and support service with personality. In an ever-evolving marketplace, AutoProtect stands side-by-side with its clients.

Taking you further

Measurable support and service so you can build on your profits Isn’t it better when you can measure your success? At AutoProtect we work hard to understand your goals and the way you work, so the added-value products we know you’d like to offer your customers can be integrated with your approach and customised to fit. Add our sales support and training, plus AutoProtect’s sophisticated IT systems – giving you up to the minute management information and sales reporting – and you have a powerful set of tools in your hands.

For more on how we can help you grow your revenue and measure your profits, call Mike Macauley on 01279 456600.

Alternatively email us at sales@autoprotect.co.uk www.autoprotect.co.uk twitter.com/autoprotect linkedin.com/company/autoprotect

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 147 185x138 Dealer Report Ad - Car Dealer Mag V2.indd 1

01/06/2016 13:08

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Top suppliers

A growing brand that offers a new approach AUTO VOLO

E: contact@autovolo.co.uk

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s an important sponsor of this year’s CDX – the UK’s largest trade event of its kind, organised by Car Dealer Magazine – Auto Volo has praised the organisers for staging one of the most beneficial trade gatherings in the calendar, helping the firm generate ‘masses of business’.

‘It was clear from the moment you stepped through the doors of The Wing at Silverstone that Car Dealer had raised the bar on last year’s CDX event,’ said Auto Volo CEO Stefan Voloseniuc. ‘We met hundreds of dealers, engaged with lots of contacts and generated masses of great business from this one day alone.’

CDX16 was the perfect occasion for Auto Volo – the privately-owned company dedicated to making online car buying and selling easier for dealers and customers alike – to shout about its latest TV and marketing campaign, which sees Auto Volo branding appearing on the London underground, on the rear of 5,000 buses across the country and on a range of television channels.

‘We are thrilled to have launched our first TV ad,’ explained Voloseniuc. ‘The campaign, which launched on June 4, features on a number of channels including ITV4, Dave, Sky Sports News, Eurosport, Discovery Turbo and Motors TV.’ Established in 2013, Auto Volo officially launched its services online in August 2015, with the mission of bringing a unique approach to buying and selling cars online.

The firm is run by a management team which boasts more than 30 years’ experience in creating successful businesses. In minutes, dealers can create online listings, which can be simplified using free motoring alerts and preferred notifications.

‘‘

Over time, when motorists are in the market to replace or buy a car, the Auto Volo brand will be one of the first websites they consider using.

148 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

‘Auto Volo’s approach stands out from other online digital providers on the market,’ said Voloseniuc.

‘Using our unique marketing plan, our focus is to drive more visitors to the Auto Volo website, which in turn should lead to more inquiries for our dealers.’

Auto Volo has also been building on its brand presence with a strong consumer offering, driven by ongoing promotional pricing that will be made available to motorists in everyday locations that they visit frequently.

An example of this ‘unique approach’ is Auto Volo’s recent pairing with Waves Car Wash, an exclusive partner to Tesco, which cleans more than four million cars in the UK every year.

The car washes are located within the supermarkets’ car parks and attract approximately five million shoppers every week.

‘This is a massive opportunity for the brand to be seen and get recognised on a regular basis,’ explained Voloseniuc.

‘Over time, when motorists are in the market to replace or buy a car, the Auto Volo brand will be one of the first websites they consider using – extending dealer reach in a range of locations across the country.’

Additionally, Auto Volo works exclusively with Warranty Wise, HPI Check, Zuto and Compare the Market to provide the very best car warranties, history checks, car finance and car insurance packages in the market.

‘We want to make sure our dealers can not only publish vehicle adverts as simply and effectively as possible, but that they can also provide their customers with the very best products.’

Voloseniuc added: ‘From a dealer perspective, Auto Volo is a relatively new and unknown name.

However, we are confident that this will change

T: 0333 004 0044

over time as they begin to reap the results of using our website.’

So far, the company has been developing its relationships with a number of leading companies in the sector and by putting these agreements in place, it has enabled them to grow stock rapidly.

Dealers now have a credible alternative platform on which to display their stock, via a choice of three low-cost monthly packages, which start from under £1 a day.

By working with Auto Volo, dealers gain full log-in access to their very own personalised dashboard through a portal, where they can manage stock and also monitor the activity and performance on their live adverts.

What’s more, around 80 per cent of private sellers who list their vehicles for sale on Auto Volo have opted to receive offers from local dealers for the purchase of their next vehicle, keeping them in touch with the trade network.

With more than 155,000 cars now available from 3,200 dealers across the country, Auto Volo welcomes all dealers who are looking for value for money and who are keen to work with a growing brand that is bringing a different approach in helping to generate new inquiries.

Please contact Auto Volo on contact@autovolo.co.uk or call 0333 004 0044. Visit autovolo.co.uk

N I JO

t s e t s a F e h t f o e v i one t o m o t u A g n i Grow bsites We s h t n o m 6 r o f p u E n E g R i F S s h t n o m 6 t e g and TACT E R O M R O F

N O C N O I T INFORMA

0333 0040 044 dealers@autovolo.co.uk

autovolo.co.uk/AreYouDealer

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 149

Seeking motor dealer for genuine partnership

At Barclays Partner Finance, we’re looking to build a proper relationship. With dedicated support and flexible products that help you get more sales over the line, we could be your perfect match.

• Dedicated field-based Sales Manager • Support from an expert motor finance team • Full product range including stock funding

• Finance decision in seconds • Tailored pricing and commission rates • Free point-of-sale materials for your showroom

Plus we can introduce you to a competitive range of Barclays business solutions.

Let’s start our partnership. Call us today on 0844 811 7747*

Choice. Convenience. Control.

Barclays Partner Finance is a trading name of Clydesdale Financial Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC. Clydesdale Financial Services Limited is authorised and 150 | CarDealerMag.co.uk regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Financial Services Register number: 311753). Registered in England. Registered No: 2901725. Registered Office: 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP. BPF/MDS3/0516

barclayspartnerfinance.com

Partner Finance *Calls will cost no more than 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge. (International calls will be charged at a higher rate – please check with your telecoms provider.) To maintain CarDealerMag.co.uk | 151 a quality service we may monitor or record phone calls.

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Online motor finance has come of age IVENDI

W: ivendi.com

E: info@ivendi.com

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lot has changed in the years since Car Dealer published its first issue, writes James Tew, Director of iVendi.

At that time, very few dealers offered any kind of interactive motor finance option on their website.

Today, it is no exaggeration to say that online motor finance has come of age. How do we know?

One single statistic: more than 65 per cent of the UK’s 200 largest dealer groups now do so.

This represents a massive change.

Why is this so significant? Simply, it means that offering online motor finance has become the norm for motor dealers rather than the exception. It is no longer seen as an experimental part of the online dealer offering but instead is an

T: 0845 226 0503 James Tew, Director of iVendi: ‘Times have definitely changed – and you need to change with them’

‘‘

Dealers are learning how to integrate web-based and in-showroom finance so that it works in a seamless manner for customers.

essential element of their customer proposition.

Being at the cutting edge of this rapidlyoccuring shift, we at iVendi are seeing new developments on an almost daily basis.

And perhaps what is most interesting is that the amount of expertise that dealers now hold about online motor finance is also increasing rapidly. Dealers are learning about what finance products work best for them online, how to present them and – crucially – how to integrate web-based and in-showroom finance so that it works in a seamless manner for customers.

For us, this recognition that the majority of customers ‘flip-flop’ is the most important realisation that dealers can make.

If you are to construct a customer journey that makes sense and generates results, you need to know that in 2016 most customers who use your online facilities will also visit your premises – and that most people who visit your premises will also use your website.

152 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

n iVendi is the UK’s market leader in digital motor finance, providing solutions used by the leading car portals, thousands of dealers and many major finance providers. n We work with 7,000 UK dealers to deliver a connected digital journey that provides an unprecedented degree of control over motor finance, completing the gaps so that the entire car buying experience can be completed online.

In a sense, the number one lesson that should be learned at the moment when online motor finance comes of age is that it is just another part of your business – a new part that has exciting possibilities but one that works best when it is integrated into your everyday activities.

And for the 35 per cent of the top 200 dealers

who have no online motor finance presence so far, the message is simple: you’re being left behind and you are probably losing sales.

Within the period covered by the last 100 issues of Car Dealer, times have definitely changed – and you need to change with them.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 153

Protection you need for the risks you face

Keeping your business motoring 154 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

It pays to have a plan Great value rates from leading insurers Advise based on over 25 years of Motor Trade expertise Gold Standard Service rated by Feefo

planinsurance.co.uk

0333 003 0609

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Top suppliers

Outstanding customer service and quality cover PLAN INSURANCE

W: planinsurance.co.uk

T: 0333 003 0611

H

aving comprehensive cover in place to protect your business from the risks it faces is of vital importance for any car dealer. Whether you are looking for new or used car dealership insurance, Plan Insurance can help.

Car Dealer recently caught up with the company’s marketing director, Grant Georgiades, who told us: ‘We deal with all the leading insurers and we’ve got some really keen rates coming in from providers.

'They’re really keen to build their relationships with us and we’ve got access to markets that a lot of brokers don’t have.

‘The reason why these insurers are really keen to deal with us is that we do the right thing when it comes to underwriting the policies and protecting their interests. As a result, they have confidence in us and if we say something is a good risk, they give us a good rate. It all stems from being specialists, really. We do commercial motor and that’s all we do.’

One partner Georgiades drew our attention to was a company called Covea. He told us: ‘Covea are huge – probably one of the biggest insurers in Europe – but because they are a French company, they’re not that well-known within the UK motor trade. We’re delighted to have a relationship with Covea, and many of our customers benefit from that.’

If there’s a word that probably sums up the feeling many people have when it comes to sorting out their garage insurance, or changing their provider, it’s ‘hassle’.

But with Plan Insurance, life can be made nice and straightforward.

Georgiades said: ‘We work with digital documentation and we can give quotes over the phone if needs be. Photographs can be emailed

‘‘

We deal with all the leading insurers and we’ve got some really keen rates coming in from providers.

n Victoria Jones of vehicle logistics company Movex won Plan Insurance’s ‘Caterham Experience’ prize on offer at CDX16. n This gives Jones the opportunity to choose from any experience that Caterham offers, such as Slalom Attack, Drift Champion and Circuit Driver, and she can choose where

to take part. Caterham offers up some of the UK’s best circuits, such as Donington Park, Silverstone, Rockingham, Castle Combe and Croft Circuit to drive around. n After being tutored by the manufacturer’s driving experts, Jones will then have an actionpacked day in a Caterham Seven.

to us of someone’s site and we can look at the security measures in place.

‘Google Maps has made it a lot easier for underwriters. They don’t necessarily have to visit a business and do a full inspection, they can survey the area to a large extent online. The process is easier than it’s ever been. We can provide a full quote over the phone within 15 minutes to half an hour.

‘If the proposer has their details to hand or has their renewal summary from last year, they can obtain a quote online with us if they want.

Alternatively, they can submit their details to us and we can send a quote by return. It’s simpler than ever. There are some really great rates out there, so it’s worth looking around.’

Plan Insurance, established 25 years ago

by Grant’s father and brother, Peter and Scott

From the left, Grant, Peter, Ryan and Scott Georgiades deliver efficient and friendly service to their customers

Georgiades, is a family business and was successful in this year’s Family Business of the Year Awards. The awards are run by Family Business United, a magazine and resource centre, and the Plan team picked up the People’s Choice award for London and the south-east.

The company is so well thought of, it has a 95 per cent rating on Feefo – something Georgiades is understandably proud of.

He explained: ‘Motor trade combined policies are quite complex products to sell as there are so many elements to the cover. To get such a high service rating, our accuracy has to be spot-on.’

Talking to Georgiades, it’s not hard to see why Plan Insurance has built a trusted reputation for outstanding customer service and quality cover.

by Dave Brown (@CarDealerDave) CarDealerMag.co.uk | 155

Introducing The Used Car Product of the Year

WMS offer a range of regulated and non-regulated products and also an appointed representative facility free of charge subject to acceptance.

If you want to generate more customers, improve retention and increase profitability across your used car operation, apply to offer the UK’s leading used car scheme, as endorsed by motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss.

Safe and Sound includes:

Sir Stirling Moss OBE Motor Racing Legend

Wear & tear warranty 24 hour rescue and recovery Vehicle safety inspection Provenance and mileage checks 24/7 operation so your customers can receive service at any time Regular contact and visits from our dedicated account management team Simple and quick claim submission, with all authorised claims paid within one working day – the industry’s fastest turnaround!

Free and unlimited sales training Free point of sale and display materials, with the option of own-branded materials subject to volume Wide range of incentives for your customers And much more!

Improv and ret ing profit margi ention ns since 2003

The wa

rranty

Request a dealer pack at SafeandSound.co.uk or call our sales helpline on 01844 293810.

156 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

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Developing and expanding our Safe and Sound scheme WMS GROUP

W: WMSGroupuk.Com T: 0844 477 4909

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s a leader in providing extended dealer warranties, WMS Group currently supplies a range of products to 3,500 dealerships across the country, designed to minimise vehicle downtime, improve retention, boost cash flow and create additional profit streams.

In 2016, WMS Group has been focusing on the development and expansion of its Safe and Sound used car programme. Endorsed by motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss OBE, Safe and Sound was named used car product of the year 2015 and encompasses a sevenelement motoring package, which is supplied to customers free of charge.

To further endorse the award-winning product, former Top Gear Stig and racing driver Ben Collins has joined the team to help promote its services. Collins has been stepping in front of the camera to help drive the Safe and Sound campaign.

‘We are currently looking to promote our Safe and Sound used car programme,’ confirmed Eric Stone, business development director. ‘We’re delighted to welcome Ben Collins on board, who is best known for his eight years on Top Gear as the Stig, to work alongside Sir Stirling Moss OBE as one of our brand ambassadors – this is huge news for the company and gives the public another reason to trust in our Safe and Sound dealers.’

Stone added: ‘Our aim is to become the only warranty company to actually drive customers to the dealers. We’re doing this by giving the public as much confidence as possible in the brand, such as the appointment of Ben Collins.

‘This helps our dealer network stand out from the crowd because, if a customer wants a

‘‘ Ben Collins is on board with The WMS Group

We’re launching a new service plan for the used car market because we feel there is a gap in the industry.

Safe and Sound vehicle, they need to visit a Safe and Sound dealer.’

Over the next three to four years, WMS Group is aiming to expand its presence across the UK and increase the number of dealers signed up to the Safe and Sound scheme.

‘Our aim is to have 300-400 dealers across the network on board,’ said Stone. ‘This is an achievable figure that gives every dealer their own territory, making them the only Safe and Sound dealer in their region.’

Encompassing a seven-element motoring package supplied to customers free of charge, Safe and Sound is used by 250 hand-picked dealerships nationwide.

By joining WMS Group’s exclusive network, dealers will not only receive a comprehensive point-of-sale package but also receive all the tools to give their business a compelling advantage to ensure customers buy from them.

This year, WMS Group is also expanding its family of Safe and Sound products by adding schemes including Safe and Sound motorcycle dealer warranty, combined Safe and Sound GAP insurance and service plans to its range.

The firm’s new used car service package will help the dealer’s customers to spread the cost of servicing, with 12-72 interest-free months available for all cars of any age and mileage.

‘We view Safe and Sound as one of the best used car warranty schemes on the market,’ explained Stone. ‘We want to branch out and provide class-leading services in other sectors of the trade.

‘We’re launching a new service plan for the used car market because we feel there is a gap in the industry.

‘There’s plenty of service plans available in the new car market and we feel the same level of service should be offered to customers buying second-hand.

‘We’ll be appointing dealers and workshops to be able to offer the service plan, but we’ll be taking care of the admin that comes with it.

Essentially, the dealers sell the service and we do the work for them – it’s as simple as that.’

Email: sales@wmsgroupuk.com Visit: WMSGroupuk.Com CarDealerMag.co.uk | 157

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Top suppliers

Our range of products sets us apart from other suppliers GARDX INTERNATIONAL

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s car care and vehicle protection goes, GardX is one of the market’s top providers, winning Product Innovation of the Year and Paint Protection Provider of the Year at the Car Dealer Power awards in 2015.

For many in the dealership industry, GardX has plenty to offer, both in products and management, and this helps to make it one of the most well-known and reliable names in the business.

‘The great thing about the GardX product offering is the range of products we have available across the marketplace – all of which are designed to help increase a dealer’s bottom line,’ said Head of Sales, Amanda Massey.

‘In addition to these excellent products, the GardX account management and support is what truly sets us apart from other suppliers.

‘We ensure that our dealers get monthly visits from their account managers, providing them with full training and performance reviews. This high level of support, integrated with our top-ofthe-range products, helps dealers with increasing their incremental profit.’

GardX splits its products into four categories: GardX Protect: This sector focuses on the maintenance and protection of a vehicle’s paintwork and interior.

Earlier this year, GardX was made the official supplier of paint and interior protection to BMW UK, under the moniker ‘Protect X’, a huge endorsement of the performance of the GardX products and the benefits this will bring to BMW and Mini retailers.

GardX Assure: The insurance aspect of the dealership business is key, and GardX offers a wide range of niche insurance products, including Tyre and Alloy Wheel Protection, GAP and SMART insurance.

GardX Maintain: GardX also offers a wide range of after-market products to make sure a customer’s car stays in the best shape possible. With fuel and oil additives, engine flush, air-conditioning cleaners plus puncture sealant and inflation all available, the products can be a superb addition to any dealer’s service department. In addition to its own brand, GardX is also the international distributor for the highly respected US 158 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

W: gardx.co.uk aftermarket products manufacturer ‘Penray’.

GardX AD-Vantage: The newest string to the GardX bow is a professional video and image service ‘that can help to increase a dealer’s digital presence’ and aid the profitability of the business.

AD-Vantage allows dealers to send personalised sales and service videos to prospective customers and high-quality images to advertisers and dealer websites. It utilises an easy-to-use point-and-shoot package including the required hardware and software.

As one of the main exhibitors at CDX16, GardX was able to show off its products to the attending delegates, and, after a successful event in 2015, Gemma Heathcote, Marketing Manager, believes that 2016’s CDX displayed all that is advantageous about the company.

‘We feel that CDX16 will bring us much more, as not only did we get to showcase our entire product range and network with industry leaders, we were also able to display the AD-Vantage product for the first time to the public since its launch in April, allowing the market to see first hand exactly what the product has to offer.

‘In addition to the GardX stands, our Head of Sales, Amanda Massey, took part in the “Women in the Motor Industry” breakout session, which was a great way for us to gain exposure as a successful company and strong recognition as key endorsers of employing and supporting women within the motor industry.’

The coming year for GardX will see the worldwide roll-out of the AD-Vantage video and image solution, as well as updates to its protection system products and the newly introduced online product registration platform ‘iGard’.

This year also saw the announcement of

T: 01243 376426

GardX’s partnership with BMW Group UK, with aftersales director of BMW Group UK Richard Price commenting: ‘This partnership with GardX provides BMW and Mini retailers with a product that has additional customer and retailer benefits and the full support of the GardX professional account management team.’

Massey said: ‘We are really proud of the association with BMW UK. They are great people to do business with. The launch has gone extremely well and we are very satisfied with the initial results. Early indications are that penetration of sales of Protect X have significantly increased and we expect this to continue to grow as the relationship develops.’

Along with its involvement in the BTCC with West Surrey Racing’s two 1-Series BMWs, its headline sponsorship status has allowed for exclusive access and a greater exposure on both TV and social media, and will continue to do so during its second season in the sport.

Massey concluded: ‘The range of products GardX offers sets us apart from other suppliers, allowing GardX to offer dealers a comprehensive suite of products and providing the convenience of only having to deal with one supplier.

‘It also means that GardX has a much stronger and more expansive knowledge of various areas of the supplier industry.’

by Jack Healy (@jack_healy19)

WINNER WINNER Product Innovation of the year 2015 GardX Cosmetic Accident Repair Solutions (C.A.R.S.)

Paint Protection provider of the year 2015 GardX Vehicle Protection System (V.P.S.)

award winning products award winning F&I and add-on solutions provider award winning support for your dealership award winning profit maximise your potential with GardX

follow us contact us t | 01243 376 426

e | info@gardx.co.uk

w | www.gardx.co.uk CarDealerMag.co.uk | 159

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Repairs cost five times more than an average warranty WARRANTYWISE

E

very year, more than a million cars are left unprotected when their manufacturer’s warranty expires.

Such vehicles have the potential to cost thousands of pounds in repair bills during the car’s fourth year and beyond.

On average, motorists will face an annual repair bill in excess of £900 once their car warranty expires. A car is most likely to be the second largest investment your customers will make in their life, so make sure it’s protected.

If your customers encounter problems with their car, paying for the repairs can prove to be very costly. This can be worrying for motorists, especially at a time of having to contend with

‘‘

A car is most likely to be the second largest investment your customers will make in their life, so make sure it’s protected.

160 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

W: wisedealer.co.uk T: 0800 001 4551

high running costs. Warrantywise data has found that, on average, a car repair bill can cost up to five time more than the cost of an average warranty – proving that the cost of having a car warranty is significantly lower than an average repair cost.

A comparison between warranty cost and repairs for some popular car manufacturers shows just how much you could save with a used car warranty from Warrantywise.

As a car dealer, it is your duty to offer your customers the highest level of cover, not only to protect them from unexpected breakdowns, but also to protect yourself and strengthen your own reputation.

A used car warranty can help protect your cars, and save you from expensive repair bills. A car warranty provides you with peace of mind, so that you won’t be left out of pocket.

No motorist wants to be hit with a hefty repair bill when something goes wrong with their car.

Warrantywise CEO Lawrence Whittaker said: ‘This data proves just how

much motorists can save by protecting their car with a warranty. If motorists are looking to buy a car, it’s well worth protecting the car with a warranty – it may just end up saving them from a big repair bill.’

Sign up with Warrantywise today for your extended car warranties and you’ll benefit from the UK’s highest level of cover.

We cover every make and model of vehicle and all our warranties include unlimited claims with no contribution up to the retail price of the vehicle per repair request.

Some of the largest car dealerships in the country choose Warrantywise as their car warranty provider.

Join them today and enjoy offering the UK’s Best Used Car Warranty to your customers. [CD]

Quentin Willson is the wellknown face of Warrantywise

PROVIDE YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH THE

ULTIMATE CAR WARRANTY Sign up with us today and not only will your customers receive award-winning and market-leading cover but you could also win a free ipad to use whilst booking on the go!

We cover every make and model of vehicle and all our warranties include unlimited claims with no contribution up to the retail price of the vehicle per repair request. If you’re interested in offering the UK’s best used car warranty to your customers then visit www.wisedealer.co.uk

THEO IS WARRANTY WISE Warrantywise are delighted that Theo Paphitis has done the wise thing and protected his jaw-dropping Maybach with a Warrantywise warranty. Read the full article at: www.warrantywise.co.uk/theo

QUENTIN VIDEO GUIDE

Watch motoring expert, Quentin Willson, explains the benefits of a used car warranty.

Watch Quentin’s Guide warrantywise.co.uk/guide

*Terms and conditions apply. Accurate at the time of printing.

For a FREE Information Pack Visit

wisedealer.co.uk or call us on Freephone 0800 001 4551

The Uk’s Best Used Car Warranty CarDealerMag.co.uk | 161

FOCUS ON.

Holt Recruitment

Work with a pro-active recruiter who really listens!

HOLT RECRUITMENT

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olt Recruitment, the automotive industry experts in recruitment, have launched a new charity campaign devoted to helping the futures of children and young adults. With a passion for giving back to the community, the Bournemouthbased company will use proceeds from every placement fee earned to aid a local charity.

Working with Holt Recruitment’s UK-wide client base, the innovative campaign will support Victoria Education Centre, a special day and residential school based in Poole, Dorset. Using proceeds from every candidate placed with their automotive clients, Holt Recruitment will buy special equipment which they will donate to Victoria Education Centre. Each client appointing a new employee through Holt will receive a charity coin enabling them to be involved and further monitor the success of the campaign on the Holt Recruitment website.

The chosen charity, Victoria Education Centre (VEC), offers specialised, high-quality education, therapy and care for young people aged 3-19.

The school aims to be a centre where successful learning and high levels of achievement prepare children and young adults for fulfilling future lives.

Stuart Holt, the director of Holt Recruitment, said: ‘Holt Recruitment aims to give back to the local community whenever we can. As such, we created this campaign to help a local charity that our team feels passionately about. As a leading automotive recruitment company, we decided that using money from every placement would be an excellent way to purchase and regularly donate much-needed equipment to Victoria Education Centre. We also hope the new feature implemented on our website will encourage

‘‘

Having a recruiter who has actually listened and been extremely proactive has saved time and money.

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W: holtrecruitment.com our clients to get involved and track the progress of the campaign.’

Hot off the launch of this campaign, Holt Recruitment have already donated a specialised sleep system and an adaptive tricycle to Victoria Education Centre.

The special sleep system, known as the ‘Dreama 24-hour positioning system’, will provide student Joanne with a better quality of sleep and rest thanks to its comfortable and supportive full-depth, pressure-reducing mattress.

The adaptive tricycle will not only provide the younger children at VEC with the exhilarating experience of riding a bike but it will also act as a form of support for children who cannot walk or those who are required to sit for long hours in a wheelchair.

Simon Brown, headteacher at VEC, commented: ‘We are truly grateful for the donations from Holt Recruitment. VEC is proud of its fantastic facilities; however, it is through the generosity of people such as Stuart and his company that we continue to ensure we have the most up-to-date and suitable facilities to aid our students to achieve their maximum potential.’

Holt Recruitment is a leading motor trade recruitment company in the UK. As a specialist provider, they have dedicated departments managing vacancies across the entire industry including independent, dealership, HGV, commercial, fleet, roadside recovery and bodyshop roles. Working with 120 of the 150 top car dealership groups in the UK, Holt Recruitment is also one of only two recruiters appointed to supply the whole of the Peugeot Citroen Retail

T: 0845 8338007

Group. They are a part of the PSL for the majority of the UK’s dealership groups and actively recruit for over 400 of the top bodyshops holding the BSI Kitemark in the UK. Holt Recruitment has expanded by almost double in the last 18 months and boasts a database of just over 100,000 motor trade qualified candidates.

With several initiatives in place to further this growth such as the launch of their new website this year, which includes a market-leading job mapping functionality, enabling visitors to find the exact locations of their nearest jobs in seconds, Holt are set to remain the leaders in automotive recruitment.

Louise Taylor, HR manager of Mangoletsi (Holdings) Ltd, Cheshire, said of Holt Recruitment: ‘Having used a number of recruitment agencies in the past, Holt contacted me and spent time listening to our requirements and getting a feel for the business.

‘Within a week I was presented with a number of quality candidates. This has saved time and money having a recruiter who has actually listened and been extremely proactive.

‘Thank you Holt, you will definitely be the first point of contact in any future recruitment campaigns.’ [CD]

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 163

DASHBOARD. FEATURE.

Ask Lawgistics .com

Car Dealer Club lawyers at Lawgistics answer dealers’ legal questions. Join for £39.99 a year to get advice like this when you need it

Can I make my mechanic pay parking fine?

Q

I asked one of my workshop mechanics to take delivery of a car and drive it to my garage. A few weeks later I received a ‘notice to owner’ saying I should pay a parking fine. Can I deduct the fine from the mechanic’s wages?

If the employee refuses to pay a parking charge notice voluntarily, the liability to do so will fall onto the employer as the registered keeper of the vehicle.

A ‘notice to owner’ will be served on the company. If there are grounds to contest the penalty, the employer can do so by pursuing a formal appeal to the local authority which issued the penalty, and subsequently to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal outside London or to the London Tribunals.

However, the ground that a member of staff was driving the car at the relevant time will not be a good ground for the appeal.

The liability hence lies with the employer to pay up. Unpaid notices to owner will constitute

A

civil debt, which the local authority may and will choose to recover.

At this stage then, the employer has paid the fine and is out of pocket. What to do? At this point the employment contract becomes crucial.

For an employer to be able to deduct parking charges from wages, the employment contract has to stipulate two conditions: first, an indemnity clause to specify the employee agrees to reimburse the company for the parking tickets, and second, the employee agrees the amount of incurred and paid parking charges to be deducted from his or her wages.

It is a known principle of law, and an implied term of any employment contract, whether written and signed or not, that in the course of performing their duties, employees have a duty to exercise reasonable care and skill. In one court case, for example, a bank successfully sued its manager for losses arising from his negligent extension of credit facilities to

ADVICE

customers. Still, negligence will have to be proven and most likely will be denied by an employee.

An employee could rack up a fine for the employer to pay accidentally and despite his or her best efforts to find out about the parking regulations. A solid indemnity clause in an employment contract is essentially a promise and a contractual obligation to repay the loss the employer incurred. The fact the employer paid a parking charge is sufficient to trigger the employee’s liability to repay.

Finally, the employment contract should have a specific clause entitling the company to make a deduction from wages in respect of the parking fines. The Employment Rights Act 1996 is very strict about when a deduction can be made.

Needless to say, the contract should be signed by the employee, who should also have a copy of the signed contract provided to them.

Without the authorisation, the deduction will be construed as unlawful and potentially opens grounds for the employee to take action.

JOIN CAR DEALER CLUB AND GET ALL THESE BENEFITS WORTH £1,000s A free telephone consultation and other great benefits, too n A free telephone consultation worth £100. n Lawgistics’ Basic package worth £95. n Twenty-five per cent off the ‘pay-on-use’ legal helpline and casework service. n Up to 25 per cent off any stationery or warranty products. n Upgrade the Basic package and receive £100 off the Small Business package or £250 off the Professional package.

164 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

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PPC is a hugely successful way to advertise your business and stock online, targeting relevant customers and widening your digital reach.

That’s why we’re offering Car Dealer Club members an exclusive deal of one month’s free management when they book a three-month PPC campaign with us. We’re sure you’ll see fantastic results.

Buy and sell trade stock quickly and profitably Cartotrade.com is the new online trade-to-trade platform set up by the ex-management team of Autotrade-mail. Cartotrade’s focus is on the integrity, security and accessibility of stock complemented by a simple yet innovative platform that allows its members to buy and sell trade stock quickly and profitably. To see the benefits, Car Dealer Club members can have an extended, no-obligation, four-week free trial*. If, after the free trial, a Car Dealer Club member wishes to subscribe, they then get their next month completely free, without contracts and never a price increase.

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Exclusive five per cent discount on your tailormade trade insurance At Unicom, we’ve been safeguarding our clients with the best protection policies for more than 20 years – so, no matter what role your business plays in the motor trade, we can have you covered for every possible risk. From road risks to legal cover, your motor trade insurance can be tailored to suit your individual needs. It’s our job to make sure that you get the best price for the cover that you want.

Are funded ADR schemes a good idea or not?

Q A

I have been asked to take part in an ADR. Am I required to do so?

Alternative Dispute Resolution or ADR is a means by which disputes between customers and dealers may be resolved without resorting to the courts. In recent years, the government has encouraged and legislated for ADR, with the principal intent of reducing the number of disputes brought before the courts, thus saving money from the Ministry of Justice budget. As a result, a whole new industry has been built up around the ADR mantra.

However, participation in ADR is only mandatory for dealers if it is a condition of any trade association and submission to ADR is a term and condition of membership of the association to which they belong.

Moreover, since the Small Claims Mediation Service is free for claims of less than £10,000, there would seem to be no real merit to be had in agreeing to a funded ADR scheme, unless there is some compulsion to do so.

WHY I JOINED CAR DEALER CLUB

You can’t put a price on peace of mind, says Essex dealer Garry Kiteley GARRY Kiteley has been a member of Lawgistics for as long as he has owned his Essex dealership, Canfield Garage.

In his seven years of membership, the 36-year-old has only used the firm’s services a handful of times.

‘We try to resolve any issues that we get ourselves, rather than go down the legal route,’ he explained.

‘But we have had a few incidents in the past where we’ve needed to get Lawgistics involved.’

One such incident involved a customer who expected too much of the garage’s Lawgistics-supplied, self-administered warranty.

‘We sold the car, a 2008 BMW 5-series Touring in January 2014 and then, about half a year later, out of the blue, the customer phoned up and said ‘‘my tyres are worn out, are they under warranty?’’ ’ Kiteley explained, adding that the man had driven more than 6,000 miles in the car since purchasing it.

‘When we said that it was up to him to replace them, he said that he also needed new brake pads.

‘And we said, ‘‘unfortunately you’ve worn those ones out and you’re going to need to replace them’’. It wasn’t something we were going to pay for.’

Despite Kiteley offer to source the parts at trade price in a gesture of goodwill, the stubborn customer refused and insisted on taking the issue to the small claims court.

Calling on the support of Lawgistics to prepare his defence, Kiteley attended the hearing where within minutes the judge had ruled in the garage’s favour and thrown the customer’s appeal out, leaving him liable to pay the legal fees.

Kiteley believes that one of the biggest benefits of Lawgistics service is the unlimited support they offer for the low monthly membership fee. ‘It’s good to be with them,’ he concluded. ‘It provides peace of mind for us.’

WANT TO UPGRADE? LAWGISTICS’ Basic membership – which you receive as a member of Car Dealer Club – is a cracking deal, but what if you need something that has extra clout? Larger dealer groups or a dealer embroiled in a big legal battle may require some more firepower, and the good news is that club members get discounts on Lawgistics’ other packages. You’ll receive a £100 discount off the Small Business package (normally £695) – perfect for sole traders, a partnership or a small dealer group – and £250 off the Professional package (normally £1,295). This is ideal for franchises, a dealer group or a car supermarket and covers all areas of legal law and documentation.

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Dragon2000 CarDealerMag.co.uk | 165

DATA FILE.

Thestatistics

n

SMMT Sales Data

n

Taking Stock

Registrations are still rising... but the market is cooling

Prospect of EU vote is having an impact, say valuations experts Glass’s

D

emand for new cars in the UK remained stable in May with a steady 2.5 per cent growth in registrations, according to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). A total of 203,585 cars were registered in the month, May’s highest total since 2002.

Following the trend of the previous two months, fleet registrations drove the growth, with an 8.8 per cent rise counterbalancing a three per cent fall in registrations to private customers.

Demand for diesel cars grew five per cent, outstripping that for petrol models, which saw a marginal decline of 0.6 per cent. Uptake of alternativelyfuelled vehicles, meanwhile, continued to outpace the overall market with registrations increasing by 12.1 per cent.

A total of 1,164,870 cars have now been registered in 2016 – 4.1 per cent ahead of the same period last year. However, May demonstrated a continuation of the easing of growth, being the second consecutive

month of sub-three per cent growth in the number of registrations. This is evidence of increasing market stability after a record 2015.

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: ‘The new car market in May remained high with compelling offers available on the latest vehicles, but the low growth is further evidence of the market cooling in the face of concerns around economic and political stability.

‘Whether this is the result of some buyers holding off until the current uncertainty is resolved or a sign of a more stable market for new cars remains to be seen.’

Ian Gilmartin, head of retail and wholesale at Barclays, said: ‘The more

moderate growth is in line with what we’ve been predicting for several months, and keeps the industry on the road to another record year.

‘It’s an impressive result when considering the wider uncertainty at the moment, and we may see a short-term bump in the numbers postreferendum, but overall it feels like this slightly lower and more stable growth is about right at this time.’

Rupert Pontin, director of valuations at Glass’s, said: ‘A 2.5 per cent uplift suggests that we are experiencing a normal level of demand without the excessive pre-registration activity that we experienced earlier in the year.

‘The increase is focussed on the fleet sector which means that despite some concerns driven by the world economic position and a general lack of major investment in new initiatives, renewal of company fleets is still a priority.

‘There is little doubt that the EU referendum is having an impact on the car market as a whole.’

Mike Hawes at CDX, p54

‘Now used car dealers need to offer PCPs’ APPEALING finance offers and clever marketing are helping drive the new car market forward, according to Close Brothers Motor Finance CEO James Broadhead.

Broadhead said: ‘The appetite among British consumers for new cars continues to go from strength to strength, which is no doubt thanks to the range of attractive finance options available, as well as the eye-catching marketing campaigns from many large 166 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

car manufacturers. In fact our dealers have said finance options such as PCPs are becoming so popular among new car buyers that in some cases, new cars are being bought at a cheaper shortterm cost than used vehicles.

‘This poses a significant challenge to used car dealerships. Used car dealerships tend to operate on smaller margins and as a result, need to capture attention by offering excellent service at all stages of the buying journey.

‘A knowledgeable salesforce, able to create a bespoke customer experience for every buyer, is vital to build customer confidence.

‘While competition with new car sales will continue, dealers can address this by understanding the variety of finance options available.

‘In particular, used car dealers must begin to make the most of PCP packages that have proven so popular among new car buyers.’

SMMT sales data May/year to date

5

Top

Most-improved manufacturers in May

DS +5,584% Jaguar +64% SsangYong +64% Bentley

+62%

Abarth +55%

5

Bottom

Worst-performing manufacturers in May Chrysler -100% Chevrolet -100% Alfa Romeo -24% Seat -23% Vauxhall -21%

SEAT -23%

PEUGEOT +18%

Figures supplied by SMMT

May 2016

Marque

2016

Abarth Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Chevrolet Chrysler Citroen* Dacia DS* Fiat Ford Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Kia Land Rover Lexus Lotus Maserati Mazda Mercedes-Benz MG MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Peugeot Porsche Renault SEAT Skoda smart SsangYong Subaru Suzuki Toyota Vauxhall Volkswagen Volvo Other British Other Imports Total

282 337 67 13,970 120 15,423 0 0 5,783 2,137 1,478 4,327 23,740 4,243 7,232 137 2,590 1,078 6,912 6,290 874 20 129 2,862 13,721 296 5,073 1,310 10,925 8,208 1,023 6,259 3,499 6,159 1,001 310 246 2,738 7,144 16,300 16,050 2,973 98 221 203,585

% market share 0.14 0.17 0.03 6.86 0.06 7.58 0.00 0.00 2.84 1.05 0.73 2.13 11.66 2.08 3.55 0.07 1.27 0.53 3.40 3.09 0.43 0.01 0.06 1.41 6.74 0.15 2.49 0.64 5.37 4.03 0.50 3.07 1.72 3.03 0.49 0.15 0.12 1.34 3.51 8.01 7.88 1.46 0.05 0.11

May 2015

2015

181 447 68 13,802 74 12,206 1 4 6,301 2,046 26 4,370 24,273 3,624 7,045 98 1,579 1,109 6,133 4,966 959 18 122 2,718 11,355 269 5,239 1,608 11,561 6,922 1,136 5,453 4,595 5,914 705 189 249 2,589 7,300 20,698 17,316 3,192 62 184 198,706

% market share 0.09 0.22 0.03 6.95 0.04 6.14 0.00 0.00 3.17 1.03 0.01 2.20 12.22 1.82 3.55 0.05 0.79 0.56 3.09 2.50 0.48 0.01 0.06 1.37 5.71 0.14 2.64 0.81 5.82 3.48 0.57 2.74 2.31 2.98 0.35 0.10 0.13 1.30 3.67 10.42 8.71 1.61 0.03 0.09

% change 55.80 -24.61 -1.47 1.22 62.16 26.36 -100.00 -100.00 -8.22 4.45 5,584.62 -0.98 -2.20 17.08 2.65 39.80 64.03 -2.80 12.70 26.66 -8.86 11.11 5.74 5.30 20.84 10.04 -3.17 -18.53 -5.50 18.58 -9.95 14.78 -23.85 4.14 41.99 64.02 -1.20 5.76 -2.14 -21.25 -7.31 -6.86 58.06 20.11 2.46

2016 1,596 2,290 382 75,018 773 72,898 3 0 31,776 11,488 7,664 26,882 140,948 27,305 39,783 996 13,675 6,127 37,940 36,890 6,046 131 550 22,367 73,037 1,560 25,245 9,287 64,797 46,003 5,710 35,414 20,389 33,198 4,738 1,950 1,503 16,586 44,576 107,369 90,370 17,805 347 1,458 1,164,870

Year-to-date (YTD) % market share 0.14 0.20 0.03 6.44 0.07 6.26 0.00 0.00 2.73 0.99 0.66 2.31 12.10 2.34 3.42 0.09 1.17 0.53 3.26 3.17 0.52 0.01 0.05 1.92 6.27 0.13 2.17 0.80 5.56 3.95 0.49 3.04 1.75 2.85 0.41 0.17 0.13 1.42 3.83 9.22 7.76 1.53 0.03 0.13

2015

868 2,184 403 71,985 584 63,121 3 110 38,017 11,895 26 26,114 144,095 23,259 38,539 505 7,682 4,436 34,541 31,120 5,689 153 645 20,062 61,748 1,436 24,138 11,048 67,652 47,333 5,188 30,186 22,278 31,333 2,716 976 1,422 14,598 44,144 112,412 96,394 16,839 323 872 1,119,072

% market share 0.08 0.20 0.04 6.43 0.05 5.64 0.00 0.01 3.40 1.06 0.00 2.33 12.88 2.08 3.44 0.05 0.69 0.40 3.09 2.78 0.51 0.01 0.06 1.79 5.52 0.13 2.16 0.99 6.05 4.23 0.46 2.70 1.99 2.80 0.24 0.09 0.13 1.30 3.94 10.05 8.61 1.50 0.03 0.08

% change 83.87 4.85 -5.21 4.21 32.36 15.49 0.00 -100.00 -16.42 -3.42 29,376.92 2.94 -2.18 17.40 3.23 97.23 78.01 38.12 9.84 18.54 6.28 -14.38 -14.73 11.49 18.28 8.64 4.59 -15.94 -4.22 -2.81 10.06 17.32 -8.48 5.95 74.45 99.80 5.70 13.62 0.98 -4.49 -6.25 5.74 7.43 67.20 4.09

*Citroën’s monthly registrations included DS until May 2015. As the Citroën result is for both brands, Citroën and DS registrations need to be combined when comparing year-on-year.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 167

AUCTIONS.

Henstock AUCTION STATIONS

There is a cure for the summertime blues!

W Best-of-breed cars are The star car of the sale was this beautiful re-creation of the iconic Mercedes Benz 300SLR

in demand as sales total tops £1.56 million

Silverstone Auctions makes its international debut

H

eading outside the UK for its international debut at the Classic Race Aarhus in Denmark, Silverstone Auctions achieved total sales of more than €2 million (£1.56m).

The two-day auction, hosted by Silverstone Auctions and Lauritz.com, took place in the stunning setting of the Mindeparken in view of the Royal Palace and featured nearly 100 best-of-breed cars from vendors in Europe and the UK. The star car of the sale, a beautiful re-creation of the iconic Mercedes Benz 300SLR, was sold to rapturous applause for €326,250 (£254,700). One of just five examples, this 2010 model was handbuilt to the exact dimensions of the original, utilising the very highest quality components throughout.

With plenty of pre-sale interest from Danish visitors at the auction, a 1964 Mercedes 600, formerly owned by travel tycoon and one of the wealthiest men in Denmark, Simon Spies, sold for €140,630 (£109,590), more than €20,000 (£15,600)

over its lower estimate. Collectors seeking a special low-mileage classic were spoilt for choice, with a fantastic selection on offer.

A remarkable, time-warp 1974 Volkswagen Beetle barn find with just 56 miles from new sold for €38,250 (£29,860) while a 1991 BMW 850i with just one owner and an indicated mileage of 1,090 sold for €87,750 (£68,510), a believed new world record price. Ferrari fans were clearly impressed by a 2003 Ferrari 456M with just 7,400 miles from new and the desirable manual gearbox, which sold for a fantastic €90,000 (£70,260), more than €25,000 (£19,500) over its lower estimate.

Speaking immediately after its first international sale, Nick Whale, managing director of Silverstone Auctions, said, ‘We’ve had a fabulous weekend here at the Classic Race Aarhus and it’s been a privilege to showcase Silverstone Auctions to a brand new audience.

‘I want to offer my congratulations to all those who were successful in purchasing the cars of their dreams and hope they will be very happy with them.’

ith the summer months upon us, the market is now moving into a period when demand eases and values remain relatively flat.

So what might car dealers focus on over the coming weeks? Re-appraise the stock you have on the forecourt and look at your pricing strategy. Be ruthless in pruning over-age stock, and keep a close eye on your part-exchange line. Cash in these non-retail and overage vehicles and invest the money in attractive new stock to tempt buyers.

When business slows, it is important to identify the profit opportunities in part-exchange stock and this is where BCA’s Dealer Pro tools can help. Dealer Pro from BCA is an online and iPad tool, designed to help dealerships control and manage vehicle appraisals, provide accurate valuations and profitably manage part-exchange inventory and vehicle disposals – and as a result, sell more vehicles relative to the market conditions.

The system has been adopted by many of the UK’s leading dealer groups and has beneficially transformed the handling of part-exchange appraisals and valuations.

Incoming part-exchange vehicles can be processed fluidly, and allocated to retail or trade as appropriate. The system can integrate with dealers’ existing processes, is auditable, transparent and doesn’t rely on subjectivity at any stage.

Data analysis is an important feature of the system, allowing the efficiency and accuracy of the sales team to be tracked, for example.

Group functionality means every incoming vehicle can be seen by every part of the business. Should another dealership within the group spot a car that has been uploaded to Dealer Pro, it can get in touch and offer a deal – all in real time.

Maximise your profit opportunities by making the most of your PX vehicles. It is one sure way to beat the summertime blues!

Who is Simon Henstock? ‚

He is BCA UK s Chief Operating Officer – Remarketing. Visit bca.co.uk or call 0845 600 6644.

MAJOR CORPORATE FLEET & MANUFACTURER CAR AUCTIONS 3 100’s of Professional buyers every Thursday 10am – 300 fleet vehicles at Rockingham and Belfast 3 Live Bid 2 online technology available from smartphone and tablet 3 Buy with confidence - corporate vehicles subject to mechanical health check and 20+ digital images 3 Competitive buyer fees - buy five cars or more and qualify for Platinum rates

ENTRIES INVITED FROM CORPORATE VENDORS WORLD CLASS FACILITIES – FIRST RATE SERVICE Click www.cityauctiongroup.com for vehicle details, images and NAMA inspection reports 168 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

Lead conversion in the new car market drives demand for CarKeys.co.uk bit.ly/conversions100

Warning alarm is sounded over independence status Caution urged over the possibility of a remarketing ‘paradigm shift’

APPOINTMENT

Konrad takes up new role of director

T

he independence of UK car auctions is at risk – that’s the bold message from Matt Dale, director of vehicle remarketing specialist G3.

The statement comes in the wake of some of the UK’s most well-known auction brands acquiring peripheral motoring businesses that Dale fears may monopolise the whole lifecycle of automotive retail.

‘It is now three years since British Car Auctions (later renamed BCA) acquired We Buy Any Car,’ he said. ‘This was quickly followed by Manheim’s purchase of We Want Any Car, and smaller car-buying companies were also subsequently bought out.

‘At first glance, such acquisitions appeared to make sense. The brands were leveraging their knowledge of the automotive industry and diversifying in their operations. But give it further thought and it means the lines have become blurred in the remarketing sector.’

Dale’s concern stems from the fact that in every physical auction there are prime selling slots that a vendor will strive to secure. However, he claims that in recent times these coveted slots have been increasingly allocated to the auction house’s own

Matt Dale fears for the future of UK car auctions, following peripheral acquisitions vehicles, to maximise the return from the cars they themselves need to sell.

‘This is obviously to the detriment of other vendors,’ he said. ‘It’s entirely at odds with what an auction should be – an independent remarketer.

‘What’s more, because organisations such as We Buy Any Car buy the type of vehicles that main dealers and car supermarkets would ordinarily ‘‘recycle’’ in the part-exchange process, the playing field is further imbalanced. Of course, everyone has the same opportunity to purchase these cars from members of the public, and the consumer will simply

go wherever they get the best return.

‘But I do believe this situation represents a significant conflict of interest for any auction that buys and resells stock.’

Believing that, in these instances, neither the vendor nor purchaser truly comes first, Dale’s biggest fear lies in where the acquisition trail will end.

‘Will auction firms move into the fleet and lease markets next, to secure more guaranteed stock for their own remarketing operations?’ he asks.

‘Only time will tell, but I think this is a paradigm shift that should be viewed with caution.’

BCA and Sinclair become prestige and premium partners BCA and Sinclair Group have united for a new remarketing partnership that will focus on prestige and premium vehicles.

Vehicles from three Audi and four Car dealer dealerships new strip ad 3/16 Mercedes-Benz within

the Sinclair Group – the largest motor group in Wales with more than 20 retail sites – will be remarketed at the UK’s largest auction centre, BCA Blackbushe, every Wednesday, with 13:27 toPage 1 all7/3/16 vehicles available BCA Live

THE FLEET AUCTION GROUP - THE UK’S

N1 O

TRADE ONLY AUCTION

Online buyers nationwide. Sinclair vehicles will be pre-sale valeted to a high standard and BCA Smart Prepared where appropriate. All vehicles will also be offered under the BCA Assured scheme.

KONRAD Zwirner has been appointed BCA’s European strategic development director as of June 1.

In the new role, he will develop a three-year business plan for BCA’s European operations, with a focus on growth and the provision of new services in the mid-term.

Zwirner has a wealth of experience in automotive logistics and has joined BCA from major panEuropean vehicle logistics supplier Hödlmayr International AG, where he was a senior director. Tim Lampert, chief financial officer at BCA Marketplace, said: ‘We are delighted to welcome Konrad Zwirner to the BCA team. He brings a great deal of experience and market knowledge of the European logistics sector gained with Hödlmayr International.

‘Konrad’s appointment is of critical importance to achieving our strategic objectives in Europe and to meet our longer-term goals.

His experience and drive will be invaluable.’

Purpose built 12 acre auction complex Central UK location Fixed cost buyers premium Fleet Car Sales every Monday & Thursday at 10am Collection of vehicles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Excellent variety of weekly stock from premium sources Regular Top Car Sales. Vans, Truck & Plant every week Enclosed and heated auction halls and viewing area All new website & stock locator. On-line bidding The UK’s finest auction restaurant Call for account application

The Fleet Auction Group Ltd., Stephenson Industrial Estate, Coalville, Leicestershire LE67 3HG Telephone: 01530 833535 Email: info@fleetauctiongroup.com www.fleetauctiongroup.com CarDealerMag.co.uk | 169

TAKING STOCK. Remarketing specialist BCA analyses its latest Pulse report to give its thoughts on matters that are important to dealers for the months ahead

Stand by for the Euro 2016, referendum and Rio effect This summer means even more distractions for household budgets apart from holidays, says Simon Henstock, BCA’s chief operating officer for UK remarketing

F

or the second month running, average used car values rose across the board, according to BCA’s Pulse report, with record average monthly values achieved in the fleet & lease and part-exchange sectors.

Nearly-new values also improved during May. As a result, the headline average value of a used car rose to its highest point on record, improving by £106 (1.3 per cent) to £8,261.

Year-on-year, the headline figure was up by £458, equivalent to a substantial 5.8 per cent rise.

May is typically a slower month for the used vehicle sector, with the two bank holidays often proving disruptive to trading patterns. However, average values for fleet/lease and dealer partexchange cars continued to rise and remain at record levels.

We are seeing a two-tier market develop where the very best presented cars are attracting a lot of attention from buyers, while poorer condition examples need to be realistically valued if they are to compete. Ready-to-retail stock is very desirable and it is noticeable how the best grade and specification cars in attractive colours can outperform the rest of the market by some margin.

In contrast, vehicles in poor condition and at above-average mileage should be carefully appraised and sensibly valued in line with the condition report to attract buyers and sell first time. Where appropriate, consider SMART repairs for quick wins on damage.

With the summer months upon us, the market is now moving into a period when demand eases and values typically remain relatively flat. Household budgets tend to focus on paying for the summer holidays rather than changing the family car, and this year we also have the distractions of Euro 2016, the EU referendum and the Rio Olympics. History tells us these events have notable, if short-term, effects on the retail sector and this year will probably

be no different. Whatever the market dynamics, however, it is vital to price vehicles in line with current sentiment and to fairly reflect the make, model, age, mileage, colour and condition.

Looking at the average price performance by model shape, values generally rose in May compared with April, with hatchbacks rising by 1.1 per cent, estates by 2.6 per cent and saloons by 0.7 per cent, although MPVs fell by 2.8 per cent. Coupés and roadsters bounced back after some minor price pressure last month, but the rather poor weather has put pressure on convertible values, which fell by nearly five per cent, albeit in a low-volume sector where model mix has a part to play. Despite a small rise of just £7 over the month, fleet & lease car values reached record

Headline average value of a used car

£8,261

170 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

average levels of £9,906 at BCA in May, the fourth consecutive month-on-month rise. Retained value against original manufacturer’s retail price fell marginally to 41.9 per cent from 42.1 per cent in April, with age and mileage steady.

Compared with May 2015, average fleet & lease values were up by £187 (1.9 per cent), with retained value static and average mileage and age falling. Average values for dealer part-exchange cars improved for the third month running, rising modestly by £16. Values averaged £4,490 in May, achieving record levels for the second month running. Year-on-year values remain ahead by £93 (2.1 per cent), with age rising slightly and mileage declining. Nearly-new values also improved in May, rising by £431 to £20,494. Model mix has a significant effect in this very low volume sector.

Average value for dealer part-exes

£4,490

MARKET INSIGHT.

..in association with ASE-global.com

Most motor retail groups enjoy better performance There’s still some way to go before they reach their values at the start of 2016, says Adam Cottam

M

otor retail groups listed on UK exchanges have recovered from April, although for the majority their value has not yet returned to that seen at the start of the year.

In transactional activity, Marshall bought Ridgeway Group in the biggest deal for more than a decade and Vertu purchased Leeds Jaguar in a move that allows it to bring Jaguar and Land Rover together on a new purpose-built facility.

The UK economy is still growing but at a slowing rate, mainly because of the uncertainty caused by the upcoming referendum on EU membership. This should ease once the vote has taken place and businesses can start planning for the resulting trading landscape.

The UK motor retail groups performed better in May, with prices improving compared with April.

Every share price improved versus April apart from Caffyns, whose value dropped slightly.

The most notable increase was that of Marshall Motor Holdings.

Financial performance It was a busy month in terms of trading updates for the listed UK motor retail groups.

Vertu released final results to the end of February 2016, Lookers and Inchcape released Q1 trading updates, Cambria released interim six-month results and Caffyns announced preliminary results to the end of March.

Vertu’s results showed significant growth year-on-year, with revenues up 16.8 per cent (7.3 per cent like-for-like) and PBT up 23.8 per cent.

The business made significant acquisitions through the year and the results show

Share price movement from January 1 to May 31, 2016

Share price movement from January 1 to April 29, 2016

Pendragon

87.8%

72.7%

Vertu

75.9%

75.6%

Lookers

80.9%

75.2%

Inchcape

86.8%

86.3%

Cambria

98.1%

85.6%

Caffyns

105.5%

107.3%

Marshall

98.6%

80.8%

this growth in earnings and revenue. Its strategy to maximise the high-margin service operation by increasing vehicle parc through new and used vehicle sales is proving successful, with like-forlike aftersales revenues up 4.8 per cent in 2016.

Service revenues grew by 6.5 per cent – a sixth consecutive year of growth.

The Lookers results reflected strong aftersales performance as gross profit increased 23 per cent and seven per cent on a like-for-like basis. The improving fortunes of used are attributed to the recent upgrades to the business’s website, helping it generate more leads with these opportunities predicted to continue increasing. The company

had a very strong March, which is a critical month for any franchised motor retail business.

Inchcape’s UK revenue was up by 10.7 per cent like-for-like, although its margins were lower than expected because of the competitive trading environment. Cambria’s H1 results were strong, with a £4.6m PBT being posted for the period, up 40.1 per cent year-on-year and 10 per cent ahead of forecast. Like-for-like used unit sales were up 2.4 per cent and used gross profit up 8.1 per cent, new unit sales were up 5.1 per cent and aftersales revenues were up 8.9 per cent.

Finally, Caffyns released interim year-end results showing a 15.6 per cent increase in underlying profit before tax compared with 2015. New and used units sales were up, aftersales revenues were up like-for-like and it was also revealed the business had a £9.5m surplus on property when valued in March 2016.

Transactional activity In the fourth-biggest deal in the history of the sector, Marshall Motor Holdings bought Ridgeway Group for £106.9m. Spread over 12 brands, this added 30 trading sites to Marshall’s portfolio, increasing its presence with Volkswagen Group, Jaguar Land Rover and Mercedes Benz. The deal increased MMH’s share price by 22 per cent and it is expected to double the group’s earnings.

Vertu continued its expansion by purchasing Leeds Jaguar for £650k, including £500k of goodwill. The business will run alongside its existing Land Rover operation on a new site under construction.

Who is Adam Cottam?

He’s corporate finance executive at dealer profitability specialist ASE plc. You can read ASE’s column here every month.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 171

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RECRUITMENT.

New managing director will help continue expansion

APPOINTMENT

Danny’s business development role

DANNY O’Donovan from Pontypridd is the new business development manager for Wessex Garages’ Renault dealership in and its BMW/Mini businesses.

Newport.

He returned to Peter Vardy in In his new position, 2014 as commercial director, having the 56-year-old will be previously worked with the group in responsible for fleet sales at the dealership on Newport 2007. He lives in Glasgow with his Retail Park and will build wife Fiona and two daughters, relationships with businesses Saskia and Amber. in the city.

Peter Vardy, chief executive, said: ‘I The father-of-two said: have known Cameron since he joined ‘I joined Wessex Garages me at Reg Vardy plc and more recently because I was very keen to to open my first BMW/Mini business work with a forward-thinking following the acquisition of Dunedin and proactive business and in 2007. I believe he will help take I was attracted to its track our business on to secure bigger and record. I can’t wait to really get stuck into my better achievements.’ role and meet current and Peter Vardy Group operates five potential customers.

Vauxhall volume dealerships and five ‘Renault’s vehicle range prestige dealerships selling Jaguar, is highly competitive and I Land Rover, Porsche or BMW-Mini am excited to expand and vehicles as well as Scotland’s biggest strengthen Wessex Garages’ indoor used car showroom, CarStore, fleet business in Newport.’

MMG careers Glasgow. advert_Layout 1 26/07/2012 15:29 Page 1 at Hillington,

‘I believe he will take our business on to bigger and better achievements’

C

ameron Wade has been appointed managing director of the Motor Division at Peter Vardy Group, the fast-growing Scotland-wide automotive retailing business.

In this newly-created role, which he took up in May, 40-year-old Wade, right, will help support the continued expansion of Peter Vardy Ltd as it makes progress towards its 2020 vision and objectives.

He said: ‘This is a newly-created role to aid expansion and allow our chief executive, Peter Vardy, to dedicate more time to strategic growth both in the motor sector and also into new business opportunities.’

During a successful two years as commercial director at Peter Vardy, Wade’s primary role has been to support the development of the

Vauxhall division and key head-office functions to deliver record profit growth during this period.

A chartered accountant, he trained with Ernst & Young before joining the motor trade.

He worked initially at Reg Vardy, running the Mercedes businesses, before moving to Parks Motor Group

Only need apply!

Marshall Motor Group is part of a unique family owned group of companies with a turnover approaching £1bn (35% growth), with interests also in the aerospace and ground systems sectors. We celebrated our Centenary in 2009 and we are still growing in size.

At Marshall, wherever we work, we all play a big part in ensuring that our sales and profit targets are met, not least by providing our customers with a fantastic level of service which means identifying their needs, and responding to them quickly.

With our strong customer centric and people focus it is not surprising that we have received some enviable accolades including "Dealer Group of the Year" and being shortlisted for "Employer of the Year" and we are committed to building on our achievements to date.

To register your interest please call 023 9252 2434 or email events@blackballmedia.co.uk

marshallweb.co.uk

Tuesday, May 23, 2017 The Wing, Silverstone

We are looking for talented automotive professionals to join our team. If this is you and you share our passion for being the best then you can look forward to a great benefits package, the chance to build on your skills and experience with ongoing training, plus all the encouragement and support you need to develop a rewarding, long-term career with us.

Please go to

www.marshallcareers.co.uk

to find out more about the Group and see our current vacancies.

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 173

DATA FILE.

James Litton TRADER TALES

What’s on offer? Long hours and pressure...

I

had never had an opportunity to attend a Car Dealer expo before CDX16 and I am angry at myself for missing out on prior events. The halls were packed with exhibitors from every supplier sphere of the retail motor industry – some of whom I wanted to talk to and some I did not – but all had something to offer my business.

Many good independents were present, all looking to find a competitive advantage in a cut-throat environment, but the main franchise dealers weren’t as well represented as they should have been.

Regardless of whether you are a departmental or strategic level manager, taking time out of the business to research new suppliers, methods or even just to talk to colleagues about the state of the market is absolutely essential to drive the business forward – a mistake I have also made too commonly in the past.

This is further evidenced by some interesting points made by the franchised dealer panel about the potential threats to our industry, the most common of all being the lack of talent both in and entering the industry. In my opinion there are three types of candidate who we would be interested in as a graduate or school leaver: 1) Those who enter an apprenticeship programme for a skilled trade with long-term potential to start their own business. These candidates will have a strong work ethic and be prepared to learn.

2) A school leaver who has energy and talent but lacked the discipline to study and therefore has middling grades. These candidates often need structure and an exciting environment in which to learn but need to be tightly managed to achieve the results of which they are capable.

3) Graduates. For me, a graduate of any subject is a potential employee. I do not care if they studied zoology or ancient history, an aptitude and intelligence for learning is a definite plus in our industry.

But what do we offer them? Terrible hours, pressure from the first week, poorly-structured remuneration packages, all in the hope that they want to work with or drive the brand that we represent.

Not to mention antiquated cultures with a lack of diverse thinking as evidenced above.

Marshall’s recent announcement that they will be paying all new sales specialists £25,000 was a big PR coup for the company. I am looking forward to seeing how it works.

Salary is just one component of the overall appeal of the world of work, and for many young people who live at home with few overheads, it’s the least important.

‘I do not care if they studied zoology or ancient history.’

Who is James Litton?

James is general manager – director of Volvo Cars Poole. He always has something to say about the industry he loves.

174 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

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We deal with motor trade only.

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Paint Protection

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Warranty

Gtechniq

National Car Cleaning

Warrantywise

Paint Protection

Vehicle Remarketing

Warranty

Supagard

CarGurus

WMS

Parts

Vehicle Remarketing

Website Design & Digital Marketing

Euro Car Parts

Friday-Ad

GForces

Stock

Video

Website Design & Digital Marketing

Maguires Garage

CitNOW

Goldsand Digital

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W: eurocarparts.com T: 020 3474 0500 Info: The UK’s number one distributor of car parts for all makes of cars and light commercial vehicles. Door-to-door delivery service six days a week.

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W: fridaymediagroup.com T: 01273 837855 E: MotorsTeam@fridaymediagroup.com Info: An automotive classified site that exposes used car dealers to more than 200,000 unique car buyers a month. Detailed search functionality helps drive leads.

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The UK’s Best Used Car Warranty

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Milk, sugar.. and a dash of Domestos!

Y

uk! The cups we used at our dealership were always pretty grotty. We did have a dishwasher but frankly it was fairly knackered and didn’t really improve the situation very much. We always felt as though we were gambling with our digestive systems whenever the kettle was fired up for a cup of tea or coffee.

One day, I decided I would be the one to do something about it. I invested in a bottle of bleach from Tesco and liberally splashed it inside the cups in the hope of making them sparkle and shine – well, more in the hope of just getting rid of some of the gunk, really.

I thought a few minutes’ soak would do the trick and once I’d finished with my big clean-up, the crockery was left on the draining board so the bleach could do its job.

We’d soon all be enjoying delicious beverages in spotless mugs, I thought to myself (before thinking, here I am, aged 45, bleaching cups – have I really made a success of my life?)

Anyway, just then, the phone rang and I had to go off and take the call. Then it rang again, then I had a couple of emails to answer, then lunch...

And so it was, about an hour or so later, that I remembered the cups. They’d be lovely and sparkly by now, I thought to myself as I headed over to our kitchen area.

Oh no! As I approached, I noticed a rather big problem: they had disappeared. No worries, I thought, maybe someone else had rinsed them out and put them away.

But the truth wasn’t that simple – or as satisfactory.

A colleague of mine had seen them shortly after I’d headed off to take my phone call, and, assuming they were clean and OK to use, had just given them the briefest of washes before putting them to good use ... by serving tea and coffee to a meeting of our senior management team.

In other words, the drinks would have contained a dash of Domestos as well as the more usual PG Tips and Nescafe.

I have to say that a few of our top bosses looked a little bit green around the gills when they emerged from their meeting an hour or so later, but I kept quiet about my bleach-based activities so they were none the wiser.

One sugar or two?!

‘A few of our top bosses looked a bit green around the gills.’

Tell us your story

Have you something to confess? We’d love to hear your tale of woe. Email the features editor (you can find her details on page three) or post them on our new forum – simply type cardealermagazine.co.uk/forum into a web browser and get confessing!

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 175

KEY NOTES

..in association with Traka

An emerging dilemma Will PCP-fuelled used vehicle over-supply force prices down? asks Paul Smith

S

peculation stirred by recent remarks about a possible fall in US used car prices not only served to remind dealerships of the economic ties between the new and used vehicle markets, but also provoked a number of questions. Key among them was whether the long-term consequences of sales-boosting financing models such as personal contract purchase (PCP) and excess preregistrations may be forcing a state of reversed polarity, in which ‘the new’ offers a perception of being consistently better value than ‘the used’.

Interviewed on CNBC’s Trading Nation, Jonathan Banks, pictured, an executive analyst from the influential NADA Used Car Guide, said that US used car prices would fall by five to six per cent over the next seven months.

The fall will not be because of an under-supply of buyers for used cars, he explained, but an over-supply of used cars entering the market.

According to Banks, more than 800,000 more used cars are entering the US market in 2016, compared with last year.

The impending glut is largely the result of the surge of new car sales driven by PCP financing take-up and manufacturer discounts that have been increasing substantially for more than three years. This sustained pump-priming of new car sales is starting to come home to roost, as larger volumes of PCP lease plans reach maturity this year and next. Such is the nature of these deals that the majority of PCP leaseholders have been opting to trade up into the next new car rather than pay a final ‘balloon payment’ to own the three- to four-year-old car they’ve leased up to that point. The returned, now approved, used cars are reaching the market in larger numbers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The additional 800,000 used cars in the US this year are linked to PCP sales from 2013 but there is evidence that PCP sales were even higher in 2014, so this trend looks to be accelerating.

These cars will of course be joining the thousands of other vehicles entering the used markets, but being only three to four years old, they should attract top used car prices. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that greater numbers of buyers who have been buying used cars for the past decade or so have been turning towards new car purchases – seduced by cheap financing and manufacturer discounting that is now skewing the market in this direction.

So we think there’s an emerging dilemma for dealerships with both new and approved used models displayed on their forecourts, if it’s true that PCP and OEM discounting is over-boosting new car sales, simultaneously eroding the cost differential between new cars and used cars to the point where a significant percentage of traditional buyers of used cars are now swapping out to new cars, even for second or third car purchases in larger households.

This hypothesis has yet to be borne out by actual used car values in the UK.

PCPs’ multi-option exit plans seem equitable to all parties and calmed any uncertainty a car buyer might have about their future ability to keep up monthly payments.

However, if the scenario that NADA envisages becomes a reality and used car prices do start to show signs of falling, then dealerships with new and used stock may find themselves with stark choices. For example, the precepts of PCP itself might come under scrutiny if prevailing market conditions mean a PCP-purchased car will be worth significantly less after 36 months than was estimated at contract purchase. Getting buyers into the next new car may suddenly look more difficult if the top-up payments rise markedly.

If dealerships want to maintain an interest in the used market, then an inventory realignment towards premium vehicles, rather than volume models, may be one of the few viable approaches to retain margins. For example, offering PCPs on approved used prestige models could well encourage determined used buyers to ‘trade up’ to higher performance, more profitable models that they would not otherwise have considered.

Another option is to target the used route for second and third family-unit vehicle purchasers.

This is already very often the case, but where the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ funds car purchases for ‘live-at-home’ millennials, then better-value maintenance and warranty options may well win the argument in favour of used. Again, the marketing message targeting such categories of potential purchasers needs to be precise.

However, with unsold used cars hogging valuable space, the time for innovative financing options and selling techniques, combined with more dynamic repricing to clear used stock faster, may well be close at hand.

Who is Paul Smith?

ASSA Abloy recently purchased the electronic key management software provider eTag Solutions. eTag was founded by Paul Smith, who now heads Traka Automotive, part of the ASSA Abloy Group brand Traka. Traka is a leader in intelligent access control, key management control solutions and keyless electronic lockers.

Keys can make you money…

Find out how at www.traka-automotive.com The only viable key management solution for automotive POWERED BY

Email sales@etagsolutions.com or call 0845 225 2910

176 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

MONEY TALKS

..in association with Paragon Car Finance

A matter of interest

The all-important factors that determine how much buyers will pay for finance

I

t’s more than seven years since the Bank of England cut the base rate to 0.5 per cent. Despite periodic warnings that rates might rise, UK consumers have continued to benefit from low finance costs and car buyers have been able to access some extremely competitive funding deals. Customers often want to know what factors impact the rate they are offered. Here we explain what matters.

The current benchmark or reference rate: For UK banks, the Bank of England base rate is the key touchstone when setting rates on savings and loan products. Reviewed by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee once a month, the base rate is the interest rate that the Bank of England charges other banks for lending to them overnight. Although it’s been as high as 17 per cent in the past, the base rate has been at a

record low of just 0.5 per cent since 2009.

The Bank of England uses the base rate to keep inflation under control, increasing the rate as prices rise towards the Bank’s inflation target (currently two per cent) and reducing it as inflation expectations ease.

Since the global financial crisis in 2007, abovetarget inflation has not been a key concern.

Expectations about future interest rates: Alongside the current Bank of England base rate, wider interest rates are also affected by expectations about the future direction of the economy. If the economic outlook is strong, banks often start to raise rates in anticipation of a future increase in the base rate. Conversely, when the outlook weakens, banks tend to reduce their rates.

Competition between lenders: During the financial crisis, many lenders withdrew from

the market and, despite low base rates, interest rates on loan products stayed stubbornly high. However, as more lenders returned to the market, competition between lenders has increased and interest rates have fallen.

Manufacturer support: New car finance is often provided by manufacturers themselves. As the UK has grown faster than continental Europe since the recession, manufacturers have opted to put more of their marketing support into the UK, often through lower or zero interest rates on finance deals. If the European economies started to strengthen, this might change.

Customer credit quality: Customers’ individual credit profiles will affect the number of loans and interest rates available to them. By and large, the stronger a customer’s credit profile, the wider the range and lower the cost of finance available to them.

Any questions?

If you‘ve a burning finance question that you’d like answered in a future Money Talks feature, send it to Paragon Car Finance at pcf@paragonbank.co.uk

I need a finance provider that offers my customers competitive rates and flexible terms!

A package tailored to your customers Paragon Car Finance offers highly competitive rates as well as flexible terms, so we can tailor a package which helps you.

We have a range of products designed to suit a variety of customers so you can offer them the best service and seal the deal. Plus, you’ll benefit too as we carefully balance our packages to meet both the consumer and dealer’s needs.

Get in touch with us to arrange a meeting with one of our Regional Sales Managers to find out more.

0345 149 7777 pcf@paragonbank.co.uk www.paragoncarfinance.co.uk/local BPCF12731 (05/2016)

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 177 BPCF12731 - Half Page Advert for Car Dealer Magazine - July.indd 1

17/05/2016 09:42

HOT PROPERTY

..in association with Rapleys LLP

Don’t wait to get in touch!

Property is of crucial importance, so getting the right advice is vital, says Geoff Sayer

W

ell done to the Car Dealer team for making CDX16 a great day. Looking round the expo halls, a couple of things struck me. Firstly, how crucial technology and tech solutions have become to the industry; and secondly, with my property hat on, how small a proportion of the exhibitors had anything to do with property at all!

And yet, as I listened to the franchised dealer Q&A, it was John Tordoff who mentioned the fact that manufacturers always seem to be requiring their dealer partners to provide better facilities, and absorb the costs of doing so.

Similarly, it was John O’Hanlon (just before news of the Ridgeway sale to Marshall) who remarked on the importance of cost controls throughout a business as a route to preserve or enhance margin. Both issues have huge relevance to property.

And so hot on the heels of CDX16 came the announcement of the largest corporate acquisition in the dealership sector for a decade – the £106.9m purchase of the Ridgeway Group

by Marshall Motor Holdings.

In the analysis that followed came the comment that the deal included a portfolio of freehold property with a 2015 value of £53.9m.

At face value, that emphasises to me the importance of property to our sector, but having advised Marshall on the purchase itself, that view is only underlined further when faced with the task of understanding and advising not just on the quality of the properties in a large portfolio, but also the risks and liabilities which need to be identified, assessed, quantified and managed at each site.

Nowhere is this shown to be more relevant than with readers whose groups may have

exposure to the Jaguar Land Rover brands (as both Ridgeway and Marshall do). The next generation of state-of-the-art dealerships are both big and (relatively) beautiful and are seen as being key for the latest new cars.

However, the move towards such facilities brings with it a host of other issues including sourcing land, planning, design, timing, what to do with existing premises, project management and funding, to name but a few.

It’s a lot of work with a single site, yet in a portfolio context and a major acquisition, it becomes ever more evident that what is required is good-quality advice and assistance from a trusted professional team who are able to respond quickly. Although we weren’t present at CDX16, we intend to fly the flag for all things property-related at CDX17. But please don’t wait until then to get in touch!

Who is Geoff Sayer?

Geoff is a partner in the market-leading automotive & roadside team at Rapleys LLP. Contact him by mobile on 07769 671488 or email Geoffrey.Sayer@rapleys.com

Automotive & Roadside Specialists Search & Acquisitions Disposals & Lettings Portfolio Advice Lease Consultancy Valuations & Appraisals Expert Witness Rating Appeals Planning Applications & Appeals Building Consultancy & Project Management Development Consultancy Investment Brokerage

For over 30 years Rapleys has been synonymous with the Automotive & Roadside market, providing our clients with an unmatched continuity of service and level of experience.

For more information on how we can help your business, please contact: Geoffrey Sayer I 07769 671 488 I geoffrey.sayer@rapleys.com

rapleys.com 0370 777 6292 178 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

BIRMINGHAM BRISTOL EDINBURGH HUNTINGDON LONDON MANCHESTER

THE FLEET.

LATEST FROM THE FLEET...

Farewell report:

HondaCivic Tourer It was the moment we’d all been dreading, but the time finally arrived when we had to wave off our trusty commuting companion

G

oodbyes aren’t easy at the best of times, and it’s been tricky saying farewell to our ever-faithful Civic Tourer.

The fact that the car racked up more than 15,000 miles in six months pays testament to its dependability and usefulness. When it first arrived, few paid it much attention, owing to its sometimes awkward looks and not-quite-spot-on driving position. The colour (which I must admit, I chose) also put people off for some time.

Soon though, it became the go-to car for long motorway slogs and big transportation jobs.

Its large load area was pressed into service on numerous occasions. We enjoyed the Civic’s excellent economy, and we appreciated the fact that it was easy to drive. With well-weighted steering, it never felt too wallowy, and managed to disguise its sheer size for the most part.

Of course, a five-seat estate car is never going to be designed for laps around the Nurburgring, but on winding country roads, our Civic wasn’t all that bad – and its manual gearbox drew a certain amount of praise, too.

Were there any niggles? Of course there were.

As previously mentioned, it was impossible to get the driver’s seat at the right height, with most of us reporting that it made you sit just a little too high, peering over the bonnet. Then there were some of the car’s interior plastics, which failed to hold up when compared to rivals.

We also didn’t like the rather obviously

blanked-off engine starter button. Those were a few of the minor annoying characteristics that people picked up on, but mostly we failed to find fault in a car that simply did all things well.

Indeed, it’s fair to say that every aspect of the Civic was well thought out and executed – something that even more expensive rivals fail to do on many occasions.

You certainly wouldn’t find the same amount of equipment and technology in a similarly-priced 3-Series or A4. Would those come with ‘magic’ rear seats? I don’t think so.

Those ‘magic’ rear seats for instance, came into play numerous times. Folding flat into the

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Civic Tourer 1.6i-DTEC SR Price: £24,940 Engine: 1.6i-DTEC Power: 120bhp, 300Nm Max speed: 121mph 0-60mph: 10.3s Emissions: 103g/km Mpg: 55 (combined) Mileage this month: 1,500 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT Looking ahead to the Civic’s replacement.

We’re hoping it’ll be just as spacious and trustworthy an ally

Jack waves goodbye to ‘RXK’ car’s floor, they made loading camera equipment, boxes and anything else too big to fit into the main load bay easy. Easy and quick to use, they transformed the Civic into a car with a vanrivalling boot.

With the seats up, there was an impressive amount of space for five occupants which meant there were no complaints from the back while on long journeys. As far as small(ish) estate cars go, the Civic pretty much ticked all the boxes – and was able to fit them all inside too.

Up front, the satellite navigation and media system was easy and quick to use. Even the cruise control was hassle-free.

It also proved to be a capable tracking car, giving our resident snapper Fleetwood plenty of space to move while shooting vehicles. The suspension was just soft enough to make getting the right shot possible, too.

The reason our Civic didn’t inspire much controversy or discussion in the office was because it simply got on with the job with minimal fuss. At every turn, it proved reliable and extremely useful, and got the team out of some sticky situations a number of times.

It’s been the reliable workhorse of the Blackball car park and we’re certainly going to miss it.

Thankfully, we’ve got our Mondeo to fill the black hole in our hearts, but we’ll be sure to remember the trustworthiness of our tangerine Civic.

Now, please pass the tissues…

Jack Evans @jackrober

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 179

THE FLEET.

LATEST FROM THE FLEET...

Second report:

Third report:

Fourth report:

FordMondeo

KiaSportage

MitsubishiOutlander

It’s a little more ‘American’ than we’d like, but we can forgive it

A knock on the rear and leak on the seat. It’s been a tough month

A nifty boot makes the Outlander a blast for trips with the kids

I’M just going to come out and say it: I love our Mondeo. To be honest, I had plenty of preconceptions about what the latest Mondy would be like to drive, and I’m inclined to lay the blame at the door of the Americans.

When the original car was launched in 1993, Ford designed it as a ‘world car’ – a model that should (in theory) sell well in all markets without too much modification.

It sort of worked: Europe loved it, but in America – badged as the Contour – it sold pretty pathetically, deemed too ‘compact’ against Ford USA’s other super-sized models.

Two generations later and this is the first Mondeo to make a comeback state-side since: in fact, the Americans got it two years before we even did. The indignity of it…

So has the Mondeo ended up as a big, American-pleasing cruiser? A little. The steering’s less communicative than in the old car, some of the interior plastics are – to my eyes – a little cheaper than they once were, and it seems to have become gigantic overnight.

Fundamentally though, who cares? It’s incredibly refined, good value, looks great and happily, still has some Mondeo DNA hiding in the chassis. That’s the end of the story as far as I’m concerned: it’s comfy, drives well and doesn’t entirely betray its roots. Mondeo Man I shall firmly remain.

Jon Reay (@jonreay)

IT’S been a month of quite unbelievable lows for our poor Sportage.

I’d prised the keys from newly-installed MD Andy’s fingers and with a father-and-daughter weekend trip to Wales lined up, I was really looking forward to getting some miles under my belt in the Kia. On the way there, the Sportage proved to be the perfect motorway slogger. The only bugbear was the sat nav system that insists on telling you about traffic problems many miles away.

Unfortunately for the Kia, when we arrived at the holiday park, it was one of those ‘no-car’ sites.

Our Sportage was very quickly replaced by a golf kart. After a brilliant two days of water parks and 5mph fun, the little one and I headed home.

Shattered from a day of swimming, the young one soon fell asleep. I should have realised what was to come next… a short while later I was changing her clothes in the services after ‘the seat got wet’. Luckily she’d been on a booster seat that soaked up most of the leakage, but I still haven’t told anyone else in the office what happened.

Unfortunately, that low was shortly followed by another. Reversing out of the BCA car park after dropping off my latest 100 Days challenge car, I heard a crunch. I’d failed to spot a low-loader poking out of the space behind and its tailgate put a nasty hole in the rear bumper. Like I said, a month of incredible lows – now to get it fixed.

James Baggott (@CarDealerEd)

IT’S often the simple things in life that can bring some of the great pleasures.

That particular aphorism came charmingly true this month while I was visiting friends who have young children, and the Outlander’s boot space was called into play for an inter-school transfer of sundry items.

It meant I was able to make use of the nifty device that controls the boot mechanism remotely – the door opening and closing smoothly, serenely and splendidly at the click of a button on the key fob.

Cue jaw-dropping amazement at this unexpected turn of events. ‘It’s magic!’ exclaimed the 11-year-old daughter, her eyes practically popping out. And given the chance to operate the boot door herself, well, I could tell that had absolutely made her day, watching with awe as it obeyed her command with a satisfying elegance.

WO65BBV has had a fair few passengers across the age spectrum over the past month, and it’s to Mitsubishi’s credit that without fail they’ve all praised it for its comfort, design and features.

Diesel consumption has been hovering around an average of 42mpg – quite respectable for the sort of motoring it’s been doing – and I’ve also been enjoying the Outlander’s nippiness that belies its SUV classification.

Ticks all round then. I’m certainly going to miss it when it has to go back to Mitsubishi HQ. John Bowman (john@blackballmedia.co.uk)

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Ford Mondeo Titanium TDCI Auto Price: £29,375 Engine: 2.0-litre, 6-speed automatic Power: 208bhp, 450Nm Max speed: 142mph 0-60mph: 8.1sec Emissions: 134g/km Mpg: 54.3 (combined) Mileage this month: 1,000 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT Realising that a more grown-up Mondeo isn’t so bad after all 180 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Sportage First Edition 2.0 CRDi (auto) Price: £31,645 Engine: 2.0-litre diesel Power: 182bhp, 400Nm Max speed: 125mph 0-60mph: 9.2sec Emissions: 166g/km Mpg: 44.8 (combined) Mileage this month: 735 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT To be honest, there hasn’t really been one.

We’ll see what happens next month

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Outlander GX4 2.2 DI-D (man) Price: £31,499 Engine: 2.2-litre turbodiesel Power: 147bhp, 380Nm Max speed: 124mph 0-60mph: 10.0 seconds Emissions: 139g/km Mpg: 53.3 (combined) Mileage this month: 683 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT The magical remote control for the boot door casting a spell

LONGTERMERS

Fifth report:

Ninth report:

Ninth report:

SkodaYeti

Mazda2

RenaultTwingo

Plenty of headroom but not quite enough space for lots of luggage

We’ve got plenty of fuel, but we’re running out of screen wash

A household purchase that nearly resulted in a bus journey home

IN comparison to other soft-roaders, the Yeti is lacking a little space in the luggage department.

The Nissan Qashqai has got 430 litres and the Kia Sportage has 503, while the Yeti has just 416.

Nonetheless, commuting in the Yeti this month has proved it’s more than up to a challenge.

If I did have a family of five to fit in and all of their belongings, it may be a bit of a squeeze – but luckily I don’t.

Fortunately, the only thing I have to worry about is getting to and from video shoot locations, which means transporting myself, techie Jon Reay and all of the kit.

Now I come to think about it, the kit we have to take along with us probably is the equivalent of three children, but it’s much easier to pack away into the boot. And it doesn’t make any noise.

Even on two-day shoots, when we’ve had overnight bags and all the kit required for our live broadcasts, the Yeti has coped well. We’ve had to put the rear seats down – luckily they lie almost flat – and that gives us the extra space we need.

What I love about the Yeti is it doesn’t feel like a big car on the road, which is what I’ve come to notice about our Kia Sportage long-termer.

Nevertheless, it feels spacious inside.

The Yeti is the ideal car to taxi my friends around in on the weekend and, because there’s a decent amount of headroom, there are no complaints – even from taller chums.

Rebecca Chaplin (@believebecca)

A QUICK glance at the little Mazda’s odometer reveals it’s racked up 19,000 miles now. It seems to be a firm favourite in the Car Dealer office.

It’s easy to see why. Despite the size, it has plenty of motorway legs and it’s good fun once you get off them, too – springing from roundabout to roundabout or threading up a country lane in a manner that would suit something with sportier intent. It’s a nice place to be. The interior is smart and comfortable, and the infotainment covers all the bases – though this week it needed a factory reset as the navigation component became inexplicably frozen.

Luckily it’s a piece of cake to use, so the team won’t have too much hassle re-pairing their mobile phones to it.

Probably the main reason the Mazda gets so much use though is the fuel economy. A trip from our HQ to Heathrow – probably the most common journey we undertake – barely registers on the fuel gauge and even a trip the length of the country only seems to set you back £30 or so.

Although it’s pretty thrifty on the fuel, the ‘2’ has revealed a slightly surprising thirst this month – for screenwash. The summer months have brought all of the insects out of hiding and any drive that takes in a sunset results in a liberal peppering of the front of the car with entomological genocide. It’s run out of the stuff three times since the clocks went forward...

Andrew Evans (@snavEwerdnA)

GOOD things come in small packages. That’s what my gran used to tell me when I was a youngster. Then I shot up to 5ft 9ins. What I’m trying to say is, it’s always good to have a little extra space.

Our little Twingo has been my trusty companion for quite a while now, helping me find my way in and out of tight spots (quite literally when I’m in poorly-designed car parks) and never failing to put a smile on my face when I take it for a quick run on my lunchbreak.

However, this month I was faced with a bit of a predicament. While making a rather large and unexpected purchase, it was only when I arrived back at the car park that I realised I’d completely overestimated the Twingo’s (lack of) luggage capabilities.

Thankfully, I just about managed to squeeze my hefty cardboard box into the back. Good job I didn’t have any passengers with me, otherwise I would have had to ask them to walk – or even worse, get the bus!

I have to say, leaving one set of wheels to return to the Twingo always leaves me wishing for a footrest, which I think we often take for granted.

That’s until we lose it completely and get cramp – my legs are too long for this nonsense.

Nevertheless, the Twingo certainly hasn’t failed me yet. I wonder if the pair of us can make it through another month!

Sophie Williamson-Stothert (@1Sophie_W)

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Skoda Yeti 1.2 TSI DSG SE L Price: £24,900 Engine: 1.2 TSI Power: 108bhp, 175Nm Max speed: 111mph 0-60mph: 11.2 seconds Emissions: 128g/km Mpg: 51.4 (combined) Mileage this month: 400 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT The satisfaction of neatly packing equipment away into the boot

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Mazda 2 1.5D SE-L Nav Price: £16,395 Engine: 1.5-litre turbodiesel Power: 104bhp Max speed: 111mph 0-60mph: 10.1sec Emissions: 89g/km Mpg: 83.1 (combined) Mileage this month: 1,400 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT So many miles, so little hassle. And so little fuel, too

THE KNOWLEDGE Model: Twingo DynamiqueS Energy TCe90 Price: £12,545 Engine: 0.9-litre petrol Power: 98bhp Max speed: 103mph 0-60mph: 10.6sec Emissions: 99g/km Mpg: 65.7 (combined) Mileage this month: 350 THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHT The small yet mighty Twingo refuses to admit defeat once again CarDealerMag.co.uk | 181

BAGGOTT.

Have you got our FREE iPad app? Download it here bit.ly/CDMiPad

Feather-clad cars, the Ark Royal... what will next 100 issues bring?

I

t’s been quite a journey – there have been some incredible highs, and there have been a few unbelievable lows – but when I’m lying on my death bed I know I’ll look back at these years as a golden age, a time when I couldn’t have been happier, a time when we were creating something different, something unique – and having a blast doing it.

Sat here, just days away from signing off the 100th issue of Car Dealer with our printers, it’s hard not to look back at every one of those covers so beautifully laid out by our talented head of design at the front of this special issue, and not reminisce about some truly amazing times.

Looking back to those days creating the first few issues – on my own, in my conservatory – little did I know that those long hours, that hard work and those simple ideas would grow into what it has become today.

Car Dealer now holds an enviable position as the mostread motor trade publication in the country – it’s sent directly to 12,000 dealers every month and more than 7,000 other motor trade professionals digest every issue on their iPad via our unique App. We are proud to hold the largest motor trade Expo in the UK – CDX saw more than 2,000 delegates walk the Silverstone halls this year and you’ve already read all about it in this anniversary issue.

And then we host the only motor trade awards for the used car industry, an area of the trade that is becoming more and more important every year.

In 100 issues we’ve bought and sold cars for charity, driven cars covered in feathers to odd places, made a Volvo look like the Ark Royal, delivered car parts in a Lamborghini and unleashed the legend that is Big Mike on the world. Oh, and given birth to a ridiculous-trouser-colour-wearing man named Batch (remember him? No, us neither…).

We’ve driven from Gothenburg to Gosport in a Volvo, crossed Europe in a Skoda and driven around deepest darkest Russia in a Mazda. But there have been some lows too – we’ve crashed cars, upset manufacturers and fallen foul of some almighty publishing blunders.

But that’s life, that’s magazines and that’s what happens when you’re creating tens of thousands of words a month about a subject you feel so passionately about.

Times have changed dramatically since those days of stressing about paying the next printer’s bill. Now, as I sit looking out through the window into a bustling office, I’ve got considerably more help to pull each issue together.

I’m surrounded by a team of brilliant writers – producing

Who is James Baggott?

up to 30 motoring stories a day for brands like AOL, the Press Association and many more. We’ve recruited some professional PR people who turn dealer stories into much more for a host of manufacturers, while my video team produces truly dramatic and breathtaking automotive footage for companies all over the world.

We’ve got designers, events specialists and truly talented technical experts who can make clever things happen with the internet. Every day I walk into the office I’m inspired by a team I’m lucky to call colleagues – and yes, I might get a bit shouty at times, but that’s because I care, because I’m passionate about doing things the right way and creating products that entertain, enthuse and inspire.

Over 100 issues, we’ve forged fantastic relationships with

James ‘I’m pretty sure I’m Baggott not dead (much to

Vauxhall’s disgust)...’

AGAINST OUR BETTER JUDGMENT, WE GIVE OUR CEO THE LAST WORD EACH MONTH

some brilliant suppliers to the motor trade and reported on some true innovations that have helped make dealers’ lives that little bit easier. This magazine – and our events – are only the success they are because of the support of these great businesses and I can’t thank them enough for believing in me back in those conservatory days when I pitched them a dream in a PowerPoint.

This is starting to sound like a eulogy, or my leaving speech, but I’m not going anywhere and I’m pretty sure I’m not dead (much to Vauxhall’s disgust), so I’ll wrap up with the important stuff: You. Car Dealer wouldn’t have made 100 issues if you, our readers, hadn’t embraced it. Since that first issue arrived on your desks in April 2008 you’ve been feverish in your feedback. Never ones to hold back, you’ve always told me how it is and helped me shape this, your magazine, for the better. I thank you for that support, for enjoying the magazine, for reading our rants, our reports and our road tests and for doing business with those great companies that advertise with us.

We’re not going anywhere – 100 issues is just the start – and one thing remains perfectly clear in my mind: Every single one of those magazines to come will be filled with the passion for the motor trade you’ve proven drives this inspiring business forward every single day.

He’s the founder of Car Dealer Magazine and Chief Executive Officer of parent company @BaizeGroup, an automotive services provider. He now spends most of his time on Twitter @CarDealerEd and annoying the rest of us.

182 | CarDealerMag.co.uk

CarDealerMag.co.uk | 183

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bca.co.uk/dealerpro 184 | CarDealerMag.co.uk