Even though Ford's Ka has been on sale for over six years, it's still hard to believe it looks so modern. It's a fun-to-drive alternative to the Fiat Seicento, Daewoo Matiz and Hyundai Amica.
A new battery importer is looking to shake up the sector by offering workshops more choice and quicker delivery.
Japanese car manufacturers are pooling resources to crack down on Chinese companies caught churning out fake car parts.
It would seem that the threats to the automotive industry's way of life just keep mounting, but the oldest challenge of creating a relationship with the customer is the greatest, says Alan Pennington, managing director, Critical Contact Consulting
A sweeping behind-the-scenes re-organisation has merged Jaguar and Land Rover's senior management functions under single directors, effectively making a single operating company.
A second company, thought to be Reg Vardy, has entered the bidding for Ryland Group just days after Guinness Peat Group tabled its initial offer.
Dealers will be able to recover millions of pounds in overpaid VAT on sales of demonstrator vehicles after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice removed legislation that capped claims to three years.
Dealers say they are willing to continue supporting Jensen Motors, despite doubts over its future after receivers were appointed.
Ebbon-Dacs has added an automated follow-up service to its Integrated Showroom system which, it says, will boost sales for dealers.
Fiat Auto chief executive Giancarlo Boschetti has two years to turn the company into a profitable part of the larger Fiat Group. His strategy, outlined to analysts last month, is effectively the last throw of the dice - failure would force Fiat Group to invoke the put option negotiated with General Motors when it took a 20 per cent stake in the auto division.
Shares in Reg Vardy slumped last week just days after the Sunderland-based dealer group reported a robust set of financial results.
Customers refuse to travel long distances to source aftersales services, preferring instead to take their vehicles to a local garages for repairs.
As the hay fever and holiday season hots up, Mahle Filter Systems is preparing for a cabin filters field day - because more than 90 per cent of all new European-made cars are now equipped with a cabin filter as original equipment, the company expects aftermarket demand for replacements from franchised networks and the independent service sector to rise sharply.
Tyrespot, the Newcastle-based tyre wholesale and fast-fit business, has added two new retail centres to its network in the North-east. The first is a 10,000 sq ft shop on the Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead, one of the largest business parks in the UK.
Moves by carmakers to buy up urban dealerships have been criticised by the Consumers' Association as anti-competitive and likely to push up new car prices. Mercedes-Benz has been at the forefront of the trend with plans to own all its retail outlets in London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Gowrings, the Ford dealer to fast food group, is withdrawing from the motor retail sector after agreeing terms to sell three showrooms. The company will use profits to expand its Burger King business, which currently has 43 outlets.
AM's autumn conference is to be staged at the British International Motor Show on October 24 in association with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. A line-up of influential speakers will focus on key topics relating to new cars produced in the future by manufacturers working under competitive, legislative and financial pressures.
Dealers with showrooms in high-cost city centres are looking to off-load their sites to property developers and transfer the business to out-of-town retail parks. Manufacturers, who want to secure major freeholds in key markets, are trying to step in, but property developers are offering inflated prices for premium land as they look to exploit the continuing boom in the housing sector.
Groupama Insurances to use a new computer-based repair estimation and authorisation system to make the vehicle repair process quicker and easier. The firm is using Glass's Information Services' Glassmatix system to link its claims operation with its network of 190 partnership repairers.
MG Rover is facing a compensation bill likely to total tens of thousands of pounds following an ongoing parts supply fiasco. Hundreds of automotive retailers, service centres and bodyshops are understood to be considering making the claims after suffering months of delays on replacement parts, including lights, bumpers and body panels.
GM Daewoo Auto and Technology Company, the new name for the South Korean carmaker, expects to start operating its new UK dealer network this autumn when the agreement between General Motors and Daewoo Motor Co is finalised.
Land Rover has opened its first Adventure Zone at the Bluewater retail and leisure complex in Kent which offers members of the public an opportunity to experience off-road driving.
The Government has released a consultation document aimed at making tyre producers, retailers and fitters responsible for ensuring the reuse and recovery of used tyres. From 2003, the EU Landfill Directive will phase out the cheap disposal of whole used tyres to landfill; using this method for shredded tyres will be forbidden from 2006.
Karl Hamer has made a rapid return to the motor retail industry after being appointed franchise director for Lookers' Vauxhall market area in Birmingham. Hamer, who was managing director at Midlands-based Hamer Group which collapsed in March, believes his knowledge of the local area and its customer base will help Lookers to boost Vauxhall sales penetration.
The Mercedes-Benz C-class has become only the second car to achieve top marks in the latest bout of independent crash tests. Now C-class takes its place alongside the Renault Laguna as the only other car to achieve the five-star rating in the tough Euro NCAP tests. The manufacturer earned the fifth star after meeting the Euro NCAP seat belt reminder protocol.
MG Rover is offering an aftermarket liquefied petroleum gas conversion for new and used 1.8-litre Rover and MG cars. EcoGas Systems will provide the manufacturer's automotive retailers with the equipment to convert the 1.8-litre K-series engine built by Powertrain at Longbridge.<
Singer & Friedlander Finance, the car finance specialist, is launching an over-the-counter new vehicle replacement insurance (VRI) scheme to offer cash car buyers the price originally paid for the vehicle.
The trade is awash with cars, and that does nothing to maintain the high level of confidence we've got used to this year. There's more stock finding its way to market via the usual auction and re-marketing routes than at any other time so far.
Ford retailers watched in dismay in the mid-1990s as a new generation of specially designed small vans like Citroen Berlingo, Peugeot Partner and Renault Kangoo started eating into sales of the venerable Escort Courier. Buyers liked the new entries' greater capacity and versatility - the result of being designed from the wheels up as a van rather than a load box grafted on to a passenger vehicle - and voted with their wallets. Sales of Berlingo, Partner and Kangoo zoomed to more than half a million units across Europe last year. <P>
