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Curtis Hutchinson
There’s a real sense of optimism in the US and it rubbed off on many of the UK dealers visiting the National Automobile Dealers Association Convention in San Francisco earlier this month.
This positive thinking appears to be well placed. The new car market in the US has rallied and is growing after the dark days of 2009. The US is clearly moving out of recession and is at least 12 months ahead of the UK.
ASE and Motor Trader have been collaborating on US trips for over 15 years and have brought many of America’s top Nada speakers over to the UK for autumn conferences.
The Nada convention is vast. Think of the old British Motor Show in Birmingham, add a hall, an extensive speaker programme and over 18,000 visitors and you begin to get a feel for the scale of the event.
Judging by the feedback from delegates Nada 2011 provided an opportunity for UK dealers to cherry pick the best ideas from their US counterparts and see how they can be adapted for use here. The event also allowed dealers to take a fresh look at what they are doing with many saying that changes made over the past 12 months or so have been vindicated by what they saw at the convention.