NEWS

FORD has ALREADY sold 100,000 new Fiestas so far this year – with 2 months of 2009 still to go. October’s sales figures have seen the blue oval supermini become the first car to reach the 6-figure mark. Nigel Sharp, Ford Britain MD, said ‘notching up over 100,000 sales this year is a significant milestone [...]

NEW car sales for October were  up a huge 31.6% on 2008 levels – the biggest month of growth in 2009. Figures just released by the SMMT show that 168,942 new cars were sold in October. This takes the year-to-date total to 1,685,981 sales – meaning the year-on-year fall continues to decline. It now stands [...]

NEW car sales rises are being driven by small cars, reveals latest registration data from the SMMT. Supermini sales are up 47.9 percent in October – and city car sales are up an incredible 200 percent! This has seen 7 out of the top 10 best-sellers being superminis.  It also means there are some surprises. [...]

DEALERS are missing out on loads of hot scrappage leads, claims automotive service provider HPI. The company has a bank of leads that could potentially lead to sales under the scrappage scheme – but confusion means they’re not being snapped up. HPI automotive director Daniel Burgess has told Car Dealer that dealers have been slow [...]

SUBARU MD Paul Tunnicliffe wants the all-new Legacy to form the heartland of the Subaru range. The new car is being launched to Subaru dealers now, to lead the firm’s recovery. ‘I knew the first six months of 2009 would be extremely tough, said Tunnicliffe’. The firm has been hit by both the tough market, [...]

SCRAPPAGE may be reaching its final months, but this is not stopping car makers releasing special deals. Kia is the latest brand with a headline offer – a cee’d 1.4 for £7995. This deal comprises a total saving of £3900; the massive extra incentive from Kia comes despite the cee’d range recently receiving a key [...]

DRIVE a snotter of a scrapper, said Hyundai, and raise cash for WOMAC. Sounded pretty good to us, we reckoned. After all, isn’t Bangers4BEN all about driving old cars over zany distances, and raising cash for charity? This would thus be good practice. One Rover Maestro was thus duly delivered. Complete with exposed primer, smell [...]

NISSAN has increased production of the Micra at its Sunderland plant by a huge 40 percent. The firm says this big rise is entirely down to the scrappage scheme. It is aided by Nissan enhancing the scheme, with its ‘extended Trade-in offer’. This sees cars aged 8-10 years eligible for the £2000 new car scrap [...]

SCRAPPAGE has been called into doubt by one industry title, which asks if consumers really have benefitted. Used Car Expert acknowledges the scheme has been good for car makers and dealers. Indeed, car markets where scrappage has been in place have seen double-figure new car sales increases. This is a big contrast to those where [...]

SMALLER independent car dealers are to see longer term business benefits from the scrappage scheme. The RMI’s Independent Garage Association division said the priority now should be on ensuring they are equipped to capitalise on this. Jonas Zambakides, IGA Chairman explained how. It’s all about ‘access to technical information. ‘The revitalisation of the new car [...]

SCRAPPAGE is not only boosting car sales, but it is also meeting a green aim of cutting CO2, says the SMMT. Registrations from May to September numbered 181,092, with cars forming over 178k of this total. This number is, of course, distinct to scrappage orders, which currently stands significantly higher. SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt [...]

CAR sales have been so strong recently, the SMMT has added 100,000 motors to its 2009 sales forecast. The revision is entirely down to the success of the scrappage scheme. SMMT chief Paul Everitt said ‘the Scrappage Incentive Scheme has had a demonstrably positive impact on new car registrations in 2009’. It sees the 2009 [...]

MOTORPOINT new car sales have risen by over half since this time last year, setting a new record. The car supermarket’s new car delivery total is almost five times the national average, it says – a total that itself was up 11 percent in September. It’s all the more impressive, said MD David Shelton, when [...]

CAR Dealer Magazine is on deadline this week, so it’s an early start for all of us. 5Live keeps us going while we crank up the internal machinery – and it was an extra-special treat this morning, when the car dealer industry was once again discussed at length. It’s all down to What Car?, releasing [...]

USED car buyers may well save cash by choosing a NEW car instead, What Car? magazine has revealed. The scrappage scheme means that many new cars are actually available for less than one year old ones. No wonder editor Steve Fowler is calling it ‘a bizarre market.’ ‘New car prices have already risen by 9.5 [...]

NEW Hyundai car dealer Keith Garages has already sold 60 new cars – just a month after the Aylesbury dealer opened. Since the start of September, it’s been shifting an average of two cars every single day. This is giving it one of the best trading pictures its ever seen in 85 years of car [...]

TOYOTA and Hyundai are two more car makers to claim record results during September’s sales boom. Indeed, Toyota claims to have broken no less than FOUR records! It scored its best-ever monthly retail volume, passenger car retail volume, market share for plate change month and retail share for the same month. Retail volume of 17,267 [...]

FLEET operators have said their ‘worst fears’ have been realised with the latest SMMT car sales figures. These show a massive fall in fleet and business sales. This has led fleet industry representative ACFO to condemn scrappage as a failure, for the businesses buying at least 60 percent of all new cars – and almost [...]

KIA has NEVER sold as many cars in a single month, as it did after recording 9772 sales in September 2009… And that’s true for any Kia car market across the whole of Europe! This earned Kia a 3.7 percent market share for the UK in September, adding to its year-to-date total share of 2.6 [...]

FORD won big in September – it not only sold more cars than anyone else, its sales boost was twice the UK average! Sales for the blue oval were up a massive 22 percent on September 2008. That equates to 54,500 new Fords being sold during the month – which saw the firm take nearly [...]