Horners Motor Group has opened an MG Rover franchise in a £1.2m purpose-built premises in Rochdale, Lancashire.
Kent-based Beadles Group's Volkswagen outlet in Sevenoaks has been ordered by an employment tribunal to pay more than £170,000 damages to a former employee for sexual harassment.
DaimlerChrysler UK Retail has slashed lead times for servicing and repair business in its London territory from five weeks to around three days since taking control of the market area.
AA Tyre Fit plans to control 10 per cent of the UK's tyre market by the end of 2004 and become the country's largest tyre distributor within five years by going entirely mobile.
Bodyshops are set to find themselves at the centre of a price war after Peter Wood, the man who shook the insurance industry to its core when he launched Direct Line, revealed he was setting up a new 'non- standard' venture.
The rate of franchised dealers closing their bodyshops has doubled in the last 12 months, AM-Online has been informed. Less than 1600 automotive retailers now have bodyshops compared with 1791 one year ago, according to experts working on a new study.
Nissan dealerships are offering a sports styling body kit for the latest generation Micra supermini.
Expanding south and west of England dealer group City Motor Holdings is to open a multi-franchise motor retail park in Basingstoke, Hampshire, on September 1 as a template for possible redevelopment in other territories.
Sir Tom Farmer is to return to the automotive industry – but not as a fast-fit repairer of quality marques as suggested in the national media. He intends to put his considerable financial weight behind new entrepreneurs in a bid to recreate the success he enjoyed when setting up his first tyre retail outlet in the 1960s.
Vauxhall has introduced a new personal contract plan as part of a major push to boost sales to private buyers through its 478 UK retailers.
Reg Vardy wants to add 15 sites in the south of England as it strives to hit the 100-dealer mark by April 2005.
Bus operator Arriva has sold the last of its 33 car retailing operations with the disposal of three remaining sites in the West Country to Sytner Group.
The new Mazda3 saloon and hatchback, due at the end of this year, will use 1.6-litre PSA Peugeot-Citroen diesel engines with the more tax-efficient Euro IV format.
Exhibition organiser London Eventco says it will make a decision by the end of October on whether to hold a spring 2005 standalone automotive aftermarket trade show at the Docklands ExCel centre.
Kia Motors UK has increased its sales targets from 18,000 to 20,000 units a year as it works towards creating a network of 150 dealers by the end of 2004. Currently, the distributor for the Korean marque has 111 sites operating in Britain, six close to start-up and another 11 going through the manufacturer's application programme.
A four-point agenda for action has been set out by Tod Evans, the new president of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
Seventy per cent of the equity in HPI, the UK's largest vehicle information provider, has been acquired by the independent venture capitalist Phoenix Equity Partners.
Prices for Smart's new four-seater small car will start at about £8000 when it goes on sale in September 2004. Smart says 80,000 ForFour's will be sold annually worldwide taking total volume for the marque past 200,000.
Sytner Group's new chairman Laurence Vaughan is looking for solid year-on-year growth from acquisitions after being given the go-ahead to invest more than £60m in facilities over the next 18 months.
The Government is to inject £15m into the UK's first Automotive Academy. The Department of Trade and Industry is stumping up the funds in a desperate bid to solve the skill crisis strangling the industry.
Unipart group of companies is undergoing a high profile marketing campaign to boost its image in the automotive aftermarket.
The European carmakers' association ACEA says UK car prices are now among the lowest in Europe, with 20 out of 71 models cheaper here than anywhere else.
Sewells is 40. The UK's leading automotive research and information company is this year celebrating four decades of supplying the industry with essential best practice guidance and management advice.
DaimlerChrysler UK Retail is targeting turnover of £2bn within the next five years, potentially making it the country's largest dealer group, as it fills in the remaining gaps in its London, Birmingham and Manch-ester market territories.
A leading road safety group is urging EuroNCAP to introduce a sixth star after the latest round of crash tests revealed a lack of progress in developing pedestrian safety.
European car makers are under pressure to cut offers and discounts on new vehicles due to the falling value of the pound.
Citroen is offering all its models, except the C3 Pluriel, at VAT-free prices until the end of September.
Workers at Peugeot's Ryton plant are being pressured to vote for a pay cut by their union, Amicus, in order to save hundreds of jobs.
Listers is relocating its head office and the base for its 30 dealer franchises to Othello House on the Stratford Business and Technology Park, Warwickshire.
A female trainee car sales executive at the Sevenoaks branch of Beadles has been awarded nearly £180,000 by an industrial tribunal.
