NEWS

IT IS not very often that you get an invite from a two times World Championship winning Formula1 outfit, but that’s exactly what Car Dealer received this week. Red Bull Racing have a couple of things that they want to shout about at the moment. Not least the fact they’ve just retained the Drivers’ and [...]

OVERALL this 911 is a good ‘un – nothing more serious than cosmetic problems really, a good find. Those were the words of Porsche GB mechanic Darren Pannell who today gave our 911 for 2011 motor the once over. Prior to some tweakage, Porsche wanted to subject our car to one of its 111-point checks [...]

Our mission to trade up from £0 to a 911 for BEN has finally been successful – here’s how we did it… WE’VE only gone and done it! Just 15 months after we started we’ve managed to trade up from absolutely nothing to a Porsche 911 all in aid of automotive industry charity BEN. Ok, [...]

FRESH from its 900-mile jaunt across France, our Ark Royal has met one of its ancestors. And what an ancestor it is. Volvo kindly brought along a 1962 Volvo P1800 to the Car Dealer offices yesterday for us to have a play with – and it fell to me to test, prod, poke and drool [...]

So it’s September – we all know what that means – plate-change time. Or, as I like to call it – spot the punter who wants to wee all of the Joneses’ 11-plate Astra. A recent chat with Ford’s pr boss revealed that Ford sells more cars in September than any other month. That means that [...]

Dirt. I believe that dirt belongs in the garden. I also believe that biscuits and sweets are to be eaten (and swallowed), crayons are for drawing on paper and that McDonalds containers and chocolate wrappers belong in the bin. Why? Because everything has its place (I’m a tidy kind of gal). My prized Audi S3 [...]

AS a follow-up to my stinging article in the August issue, I recently had a meeting with a regional director of Auto Trader. The fact that senior figures within Auto Trader were prepared to engage in anything other than rudimentary business calls is a credit to the company, but the meeting did nothing more than [...]

Bought, sold and in profit – JAMES BAGGOTT reports on this month’s exploits What a difference a few weeks make. Last issue, my colleague Duncan was lamenting the hardships we were facing finding a suitable car to splash out on to keep our pot of cash moving skywards. A search of our friendly local dealership’s part-ex corner had [...]

WHAT with all of the adverts and the posters, you probably know by now that Ford of Britain is 100 years old. So what you’re probably thinking? There always seems to be some kind of celebration for something in the UK. 60 years of that, 125 years of this, and one year on since the [...]

CAR DEALER’S writers have been recognised in the prestigious Headline Auto Awards. The awards celebrate outstanding achievements in motoring journalism and communications. Staff writer James Batchelor scooped the Rising Star of the Year Award (Business). Batchelor’s submissions included Seat’s 25 years in the UK feature, an interview with Peter Vardy junior, and a feature describing [...]

MUCH like the backstage preparations in a West End show, it was the behind-the-scenes stuff that was just as important as the main spectacle in RTOTY11. While you read and saw much about our time on the road with some of the most important cars to have been in dealers’ showrooms over the past 12 [...]

THERE’S not an awful lot to tell you about day four of RTOTY11, only that we have shot many pictures, it has rained a lot, and I have driven my first ever Caterham. But first the rain. We have been blessed with fine weather up until yesterday, but naturally soon as snapper Matt turned up, [...]

IF we’ve learnt anything from today it’s that you should always remember your friends – because you’ll need them. No, I’m not quoting that from Mystic Meg’s column in The Sun, but today’s events have proved that if you keep in mind people who can help, you must use them. Last year on RTOTY10 you [...]

I’M still shaking. A 4am start, seven cans of red bull, 500 miles and a Ferrari 458 will do that to you. Today has been one of those life changing days. The sort of days you want to remember when you’re on your death bed, gasping your last breath. In all honesty, writing this blog [...]

SO, it’s the second day of #RTOTY11 and we’ve taken a step back in time. As we are staying so close to the location of last year’s picture location, we thought we’d pop back to the beach for a little reminiscing. Out of the amazing range of cars we have this year, there are two [...]

FIVE cars on route to Wales for a special feature in the magazine. Sounds like the perfect dream, doesn’t it? Sadly though, the fact of the matter is that the dream only really comes to life once you’re IN Wales – as we have painfully found out. That’s because we probably chose completely the wrong [...]

I HAD a strange dream last night that someone left a Porsche 911 on my drive and posted the keys through my letterbox. But this time it wasn’t a beer-induced dream, it was true. Sat outside when I woke up this morning was this black GTS Cabriolet – and lying on the doormat was the [...]

WHAT would happen to the car industry if any maker gave customer service quite as badly as BT does? If it’s anything like the experience we’ve been forced to put up with for the last few weeks, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be a car industry at all. The problem with BT is it’s just [...]

IN THE words of one very excited staff writer: Only five sleeps to go until Road Test of the Year! And I don’t blame his schoolboy enthusiasm. Because when you look at the line up we’ve got for this year’s RTOTY, it really is mouth-watering. Totalling nearly £750,000 worth of metal, our road test special [...]

Maybe I’m just going a bit doolally in my old age, but it seems that I’ve completely turned my back on conventional wisdom. Like a three-year old, it seems that if somebody tells me I should do something, I actually go out of my way not to do it, or at the very least do the complete opposite. [...]