NEWS

HONDA has officially started a second shift at their car plant two facility based in Swindon. Five hundred new associates have been recruited and have now begun their new roles within the plant, brings the total number of employees to 3,500. The production volume forecast is set to double to 180,000 units in 2012. Honda [...]

SKODA has announced a strong first quarter in 2012 with increased revenue, deliveries and production. Quarter one 2012 saw Skoda’s revenue rise 8.4 per cent to 2.9bn euros (£2.3bn) compared to the same period 12 months ago. Operating profit also grew 11.8 per cent to 209m euros (£170m), while operating margin rose 7.2 per cent. With 242,700 vehicles [...]

VOLKSWAGEN is giving its Polo range a spice-up with the launch of a sporty-looking derivative. Called R Line, the car builds on the Polo Match and is distinguished by added equipment. The outside consists of a deeper, sportier R Line front and rear bumpers, a black gloss radiator grille with R Line badging, deeper side sills [...]

CAR DEALER has invested in new dedicated servers to cope with the demand for its popular new iPad App. Following the launch of our digital edition for the iPad last Friday, demand on the existing servers holding the digital editions has been so high that it has struggled to cope. In the first two days [...]

HERE ARE the most interesting and talked-about stories over the past five days, collated and summarised by us. Monday, April 23 ETERNITI Motors has used the Beijing Motor Show to show off its ‘engineering prototype’ of its Artemis super-SUV. Prices will start from around £210k. JLR has introduced a bespoke engineering division called ETO. It’s responsible [...]

FORD’S new B-Max compact MPV really is a car for dealers to get excited about. That’s the verdict of Philip Maskell, chairman and managing director of Essex Ford. The all-new compact MPV features a winning combination of unique design, unrivalled economy and some of the most advanced small car technology in Europe. Its easy-access door [...]

MOTOR Codes, has revealed the 20 most trusted garages in the UK, as nominated by motorists. Through its Garage of the Year contest, brought to you by Havoline, an annual initiative to help motorists find reliable garages that offer consistently good customer service, Motor Codes has gathered feedback from over 13,500 car service and repair [...]

DEALER-Auction has seen a softening in franchised dealers’ part exchange values in March compared to February. The firm says the volume of dealer part exchanges being auctioned throughout March have increased, largely due to more trade cars being generated from new car registrations and the March plate change. Average used car values fell by 3.1 [...]

THE UK economy is officially back in recession latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show today. In the first three months of 2012, the economy decreased 0.2 per cent and follows a 0.1 per cent decrease in the last three months of 2011. Recession is defined by two consecutive quarters that have contracted, [...]

DESPITE the soaring cost of petrol, buyers rank fuel economy as one of the least important factors when looking for a used car, says trusteddealers.co.uk. A survey of 5,000 random visitors to the used car website found that only 206 visitors chose ‘fuel economy’ as a search option – representing just 4.1 per cent of searches. [...]

THE latest Auto Trader Price Index reports that the average asking price of used cars in quarter one 2012 was £8,891. That figure represents a fall of 3.9 per cent  when compared with the same period last year. Auto Trader says this was due to an increase in volume of older stock on the market [...]

MARSHALL, the family-owned dealer group, has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Lincoln Jaguar business from the Co-operative Society. The acquisition brings the total number of Jaguar dealerships in the Marshall Group to four, and means that the dealer group has now doubled its representation with Jaguar in the last three years. Daksh Gupta, chief [...]

MERCEDES-BENZ dealers across the UK can now offer virtual, as well as physical tours of the all-new, B-Class. From today, all Mercedes-Benz dealerships will have iPads, pre-programmed with the recently released C-Class Coupe and B-Class brochure Apps – as well as the all new B-Class Augmented Reality Showroom App, enabling customers to interact with the [...]

MORE than 35,000 candidates have applied for 1,000 new jobs to build the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Freelander. Jaguar Land Rover’s Halewood plant manufacturing facility received more than 6,000 registrations within 24 hours of the new jobs being announced by JLR in March. After just one week that figure increased to 20,000 online registrations; [...]

A RECORD 12 months for family-owned Yorkshire car retailer JCT600 boosted turnover to £623m in 2011. The firm that operates 42 dealerships across Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and the North East made a pre-tax profit of £8.5m on ordinary activities (down from £12.3m in the previous year) following significant investment and the squeezing of margins in [...]

IT’S all about video for one UK dealer group who’s used a leading auto video content producer to create a Range Rover Evoque video road test. Perrys is taking a proactive approach to driving customers through its dealerships’ doors by exploring the benefits of bespoke videos. Their latest video is a bold review and summary [...]

The head of Renault’s electric vehicle programme tells James Batchelor that affordability is key as the French firm begins its assault on the growing market for EVs. In a full year, how many Fluences are you expecting to sell? We don’t give out sales predictions, but I can say that it will be in the [...]

SAAB Parts UK has welcomed the news that parts production will restart at Saab Automobile’s press and body plant in Trollhättan. Saab Automobile Parts AB recently signed an agreement with the administrators of Saab Automobile AB allowing them the use of Saab’s press and body shop plant, including the specialist tooling, for the manufacture and [...]

THE new Skoda compact hatch will be called the Rapid, the Czech brand has announced. The new car will make its debut in Europe ‘before the year is out’ says Skoda. A Chinese version of the Rapid will be built and sold in China from 2013, but the ‘close-to-series concept car’, which Skoda is displaying [...]

A NEW-look Ferrari dealership has been officially opened in West Yorkshire after undergoing an extensive refurbishment. The JCT600 Brooklands showroom in Leeds boasts Ferrari’s new corporate identity, which was first introduced in 2010. It features a brand new customer lounge, dedicated handover bay and a fully detailed ‘Atelier’. This is modelled on the one at [...]