Hutton Reports

Ford’s advertisements in the past year have challenged car buyers to re-think Ford: “Let go of what you know.” But when it came to replacing the Fiesta, Ford itself showed a marked resistance to change. The seventh generation of Britain’s consistently best-selling car looks very much like the current Fiesta. And, although that car is now more than eight years ...

Jaguar Land Rover continues onwards and upwards. It is on course to sell 580,000 cars this year, a 20% increase on its 2015 record, its two dealer networks are being integrated, and it continues to launch a stream of new products for a combined range to challenge the German premium brands. The latest of those new products, due here next ...

Volvo is Motor Trader’s 2016 Carmaker of the Year and its Car of the Year is the Volvo XC90. That is not entirely coincidental, as Volvo’s greatly improved performance is due in large part to the arrival of the new generation XC90, an SUV crossover so precisely tailored to today’s market needs that it could be said to set a ...

The pre-Volkswagen days, when Skoda was the butt of jokes, are long gone but some of the original dealers – among them DM Keith of Leeds and Simpsons of Preston – remain as part of today’s very successful UK network, which has 3% of the UK car market and is on course for a record year with over 80,000 registrations. ...

The Fiat brand has been in decline for years and, despite the popularity of its various 500 models, now sells about half as many cars as it did in 2010. Last year, FCA chief executive Sergio Marchionne was blunt about its prospects: “Fiat no longer intends to offer a full range of products like other mass brands. The economics are not ...

Five years ago, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, a bold sign with the letters “JLR” separated the Jaguar and Land Rover displays. It was the first and last appearance of a corporate logo that was supposed to reinforce the idea of “one company, two brands” that, between them, presented a range to rival the all-powerful Germans. The logo may have ...

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) may have rescued the electric car from an early extinction but their continued success is threatened by the changes to the government Plug-in Car Grant, which took effect from 1 March. There was a well-publicised rush to order the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, Britain’s best-selling plug-in, before the grant was reduced from £5,000 to £2,500; Mitsubishi ...

In August 2012, when Steve Zanlunghi arrived from America to take charge of Fiat Chrysler UK, 28 of its 42 Jeep dealers were on notice to quit the franchise. “We wanted dealers to invest to revive the brand but they mostly gave us notice instead,” said Zanlunghi. At that time, Jeep offered only the old Grand Cherokee, the unpopular Compass, ...

It was only a matter of time. In 2014, when PSA Peugeot Citroen chief executive Carlos Tavares announced that DS would become the group’s third brand, it was said that there was no plan to separate DS from Citroen at a dealer level. Two years on, it has become clear that if DS is to position itself as a serious ...

You might imagine that a customer who can afford to spend £150,000 could just as easily go to £200,000. Not so according to McLaren Automotive, which has launched a more “affordable” Sports Series entry range. “The Sports Series will appeal to different people from the driver of a 650 or P1 (McLaren’s Ultimate Series). They will have slightly different expectations ...