NEWS

AS you may have read, we recently took delivery of a new long-termer, a Kia Rio, here at Car Dealer HQ. And after editor James had had his fun in the car, it was my turn to take it for a spin. Well, more of a long haul actually. My mission was to drive from [...]

As if deadline week wasn’t bad enough, the editor has decided to run a live blog of the highs and lows of putting Issue 50 of Car Dealer together. Follow this post for his updates as and when he can fit them in. FRIDAY 11.03: Back in the office. Have a serious headache (self inflicted). [...]

Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. First it was the school disco, then the regular boyfriend. But now the absolute worst has happened. Big Mike’s favourite female has passed her driving test, yet it only seems like a year or so since I stopped changing her nappies (something my first wife, conveniently, never [...]

GREAT drives come in many forms and I’ve had my fair share of a few. However, I never thought I’d be saying it about a run in a Kia Rio. But, last week, I had a drive across the South Downs that put a whopping grin on my face – and it was all thanks [...]

I must admit if I had a nice long drive in front of my house, like Lord March, I wouldn’t get much work done. The temptation to hoon up and down and scare the milkman in anything with an engine would just be too much to ignore. Thankfully, I don’t have that problem – so [...]

So it may just have happened – today I received the news one lucky buyer had placed a deposit on our Porsche 911! It was just by chance when we were checking some facts for the latest issue’s update that we stumbled across the news on 911Virgin‘s website. There in big bold letters slashed across the [...]

FINALLY – after nearly two years of hard work – our Porsche 911 is up for sale in aid of charity BEN. For those of you who’ve been following the quest, apologies, but here’s a quick recap: We started with nothing, traded up 13 used cars with the help of the industry and finally managed [...]

I’m starting to hear some positive things on the car industry grape vine which might suggest the economy isn’t as bad as we all feared. Twice now this week I’ve heard from dealers that new car sales are bucking the trend, especially for the new 12-plate. The first one that caught my attention was from [...]

OK, I know how this looks. It looks like I’ve been enjoying a Porsche 911 for three months. And you’d be right – I have. But during that time our 911 for 2011 motor has been having some work carried out in an attempt to make it even more saleable. For those of you that need one, [...]

IT’S THAT time again when we ask for your help. Last year Car Dealer Power rattled quite a few cages in the automotive industry. Your responses to our survey meant some manufacturers didn’t end up where they wanted to in our list of the best car makers to represent. In fact a couple even took it [...]

OUR SURVEY which puts you in the driving seat is back – and this year it’s bigger and better than ever! Car Dealer Power are the only awards voted for by the people who matter most – you, the dealers – and this year we’re giving you the chance to celebrate even more of the very [...]

CAR Dealer got an early drive of the new Skoda Citigo five-door on Friday – three weeks before its Geneva Motor Show debut. You won’t be surprised to hear it’s Skoda’s version of the VW Up and completes the Volkswagen Group’s assault on the A-segment market. And when it hits dealers on June 1, customers [...]

Landmarks… we’ve all had them. Cars that have sat around on our lots long enough for them to almost become classics. It’s all too easy to get disillusioned with them, too – you take them in px, price them above the stand-in value and slowly watch your profit erode away into a loss as the [...]

Like most people, I remember my first car well. It was a 1964 Ford Cortina, and it was finished in red. On its own fairly unspectacular, an icon of bread and butter British motoring, albeit one with pretty ‘ban-the-bomb’ taillights. But there was a very specific reason I bought the Cortina, and even more of [...]

LAST month, you may recall that I had a bit of a pop at lazy motoring journalists, who regularly dispense pearls of misplaced wisdom disguised as used car buying advice. Alas, I was then contacted by a mo-jo who I know quite well, who had a bit of a grizzle back at me because he [...]

CAR DEALER is holding a special Lead Generation event for dealers on May 18 – and it’s free to attend! There are a number of places open to suppliers to the motor trade to be one of the featured speakers. And we’re offering dealers the chance to register for a free place at the event [...]

I am a salesman at a large franchised dealership. as you can imagine, my days are spent trying to look busy for the dealer principal and chatting up the receptionist. I used to ‘do quite well’ with the girls at the dealership, so when we had a temp to cover holidays, I set about getting [...]

YESTERDAY I witnessed first hand some amazing use of social media – and it made me realise the opportunities in the virtual world are endless. Let me explain. Due to a perfect storm of events, yesterday I was left without a car to use. As you can imagine this is rather inconvenient for a petrol [...]

It feels like only a few days since a knackered Batch and I were stuck in a lift at the end of the first day of Bangers4BEN 2011. But today we had to put that horrible memory behind us as we had our first meeting to plan for 2012’s event with BEN. This year, B4B [...]

BATCH hates it when I get ‘an idea’. It normally involves lots of emails, stress, and a headache. And this month’s cover story was the recipe for the perfect migraine-inducing storm. As a regular reader of Car Dealer you’ve probably guessed we like to do things a little differently. So when I floated the idea [...]