Editor’s Blog

The Bank of England’s surprise interest rate cut from 0.5% to 0.25% may be unwelcome for savers but it could prove to be useful fillip for the car market. On paper new car registrations in the year to date are looking good with the market tracking at 3% ahead of last year’s bumper volumes. However, the SMMT figures for July ...

The highest achievers in the UK car retailing sector were acknowledged and rewarded at the 2016  Motor Trader Awards, which were held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, deep in the heart of London’s West End on 13 July. And what a night it was with the iconic Great Room full to capacity with a cross-section of the industry from service ...

Car buyers do not like uncertainty. We see that in the run up to general elections and the 2014 Scottish Referendum. When affairs of state are in the balance then big ticket purchases get pushed to the back burner. Yet within the space of days the UK has voted to leave the EU, prime minister David Cameron has tended his ...

Marshall’s acquisition of Ridgeway, the biggest dealer group purchase since Lookers bought Benfield last summer, makes perfect sense in terms of brand representation, geographical coverage and synergies. The groups also shared a common link in Daksh Gupta who was briefly managing director of Ridgeway back in 2008 before being poached by Marshall to lead its extraordinary growth from small regional ...

Many thanks to all the dealers, suppliers and visitors who supported the revived London Motor Show. We became involved with the show as the B2B media partner last summer and have worked hard to drum up support from the dealer and supplier community. This wasn’t always easy as some carmakers (with the notable exceptions of MG, Tesla and TVR) tended ...

Judging by the conversations I had with the many visiting UK delegates I bumped into at this year’s Nada Convention and Expo what goes on in Vegas is not necessarily staying in Vegas…and that’s a good thing. The annual Nada convention is the biggest car dealer show in the world, presented on the same scale as a motor show, this ...

By all accounts the new 16-plate has got off to a flying start on the back of increased registrations and footfall in both January and February. With Q1 the most important trading period of the year, dealers will be focused on selling, or, at least registering, as many cars as possible in order to hit their manufacturer targets. We know ...

This month we’re delighted to bring you an exclusive interview with Pendragon CEO Trevor Finn about his ambitious plans to kick start the fledgling Evans Halshaw Car Store used car network. Motor Trader met the Finn at the group’s new Evans Halshaw Car Store in Birmingham and found him happy to talk about his plans to create a 40-strong network ...

Even before the mid-way point 2015 looked as though it was going to be a bumper year for new car registrations and from the September plate-change it had the hallmarks of a record one. The only question was by how much? The 2015 market closed at 2.63 million units, the first time the 2.6 million mark had been breached and ...

A lot has already been written about October’s new car registration figures. Now’s the time for a little perspective. The scaremongers pointed to October’s dip in registrations as a sign that the wheels are starting to come off the wagon, a more considered view is that a levelling off has been expected for several months and that is exactly what ...