Agency model car retail is sure to become more widely adopted but agreements must be “balanced, collaborative and win-win”, according to Lotus Cars executive director of sales and aftersales, Geoff Dowding.

As the Norfolk-based, Geely-owned sports car manufacturer launched its Lotus Drive end-to-end online retail platform today (March 2) Dowding told AM that he was aware that other car manufacturers were watching his brand as they “looked for a blueprint” that would help them make the switch from traditional franchised contracts.

But revealing the “huge amount of work” that has gone into the process, which remains a steep learning curve eight months after the OEM launched the new Emira coupe that would begin its way way of selling vehicles.

“When we launched the Emira on July 6 last year we’d already had negotiations which allowed us to take up a direct deposit structure from that day,” he said.

“It’s been a huge amount of work, a phenomenal change of process and it’s never easy to ‘fix the plane as it’s flying’, as they say.