Editor’s Blog

Sytner’s acquisition of The Car People makes perfect sense and is part of a wider trend that has seen franchised dealers increasingly concentrate on growing their used car businesses in recent years. The deal follows Sytner’s purchase of the successful CarShop business in January and now sees it owning two of the biggest car supermarkets in the newly published Motor ...

What a gloomy Budget it turned out to be with the chancellor talking down economic growth and announcing some ill-defined measures on the current and future treatment of diesel-engined vehicles. While the measures to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles, with an extra £400m towards the charging infrastructure and £100m towards for plug-in grants, are welcome, the amounts fall short ...

Pendragon’s profit warning came as a surprise. And is very revealing. Yes we know the new car market is in decline as it dips to a more natural and sustainable level after being relentlessly pushed by carmakers with an eye on keeping production lines moving and maximising on favourable exchange rates. Different rules apply now. Consumer demand is down across ...

The new market fell in September for the sixth consecutive month but the level of the fall was not as great as it could have been following a flurry of activity in the closing week. The decline was not a surprise. Conversations I had with carmakers at the beginning of the year suggested the market would fall during the second ...

The scrappage floodgates opened in the closing days of August as a succession of carmakers rolled out trade-in schemes to boost the 67-plate and Q4 sales. The move was promoted by market leader Ford showing its hand with a £2,000 scheme covering all pre-2010 cars and (notably) vans, which also included existing retail offers. Hyundai quickly followed by offering up to ...

Vauxhall has confirmed that 20,000 customers have traded-in vehicles at its dealerships as part of its Scrappage Allowance Scheme. The carmaker has been running the scheme for limited periods during the closing quarters of 2015 and 2016. The current £2,000 trade-in offer opened in May and has so far attracted 5,000 cars. Vauxhall’s announcement comes 24 hours after Ford launched ...

If the government’s much delayed air quality plan is to be believed then dealers will no longer be able to sell petrol and diesel-engined cars from 2040. There’s no questioning the need to improve urban air quality through the reduction of harmful nitrogen oxide levels, but banning the internal combustion engine in 23 years’ time does absolutely nothing to address ...

We’re delighted to report the expanded London Motor Show is heading back to London ExCeL in May 2018. Motor Trader has supported the capital’s motor show, as its dedicated B2B media partner, since its revival in 2016 at Battersea Park. The inaugural event successfully re-established the much missed show and with over 25,000 visitors attending this year’s event it was ...

The annual Motor Trader Rising Stars is now an established part of the car retailing calendar. Now in their third year, we launched the 2017 scheme in January by inviting line managers to nominate star performers, across any dealership discipline, the only criteria was they needed to have less than five years’ experience in the car retailing sector. The response ...

The annual Motor Trader Rising Stars is now an established part of the car retailing calendar. Now in their third year, we launched the 2017 scheme in January by inviting line managers to nominate star performers, across any dealership discipline, the only criteria was they needed to have less than five years’ experience in the car retailing sector. The response ...