What Van? magazine has given its Van of the Year title to the all-new Ford Transit.
Toyota is to create a network of specialist Hybrid Technology Centres to sell and service Prius, its hybrid petrol-electric saloon.
Former Quicks Group chief executive and deputy chairman Alec Murray has been appointed to the board of directors at Black I.
Edinburgh-based Glenvarigill has paid £4m, the largest investment in its history, to acquire two Audi dealerships from the ailing Abercromby company.
European Commissioner Mario Monti has repeated his warning to carmakers not to violate European competition laws as he considers a review of the existing Block Exemption regulations.
It took time - around 25 years - but at last David Evans has the job he wanted. He is chief executive of the Retail Motor Industry Federation. Not 'acting'. Not 'temporary'. He is the boss.
IT editor DAVID SUMNER SMITH sets the scene for coverage of the Automotive Management Digital Dealer Fair with this personal view of a developing car sales revolution.
Body repairers have praised Retail Motor Industry Federation president John Bond-Smith for highlighting their plight at the association's annual dinner.
John Clark Motor Group is to invest £285,000 in developing a new group bodyshop and parts distribution centre in Aberdeen.
Volkswagen has given the Passat, launched in 1996, a mid-term makeover to compete with the new Ford Mondeo and Renault Laguna.
Paint companies are split over whether refinish prices in the UK will have to rise by 7% or more as a result of recent oil price rises.
Paint companies are offering body repairers backhanders as high as £500,000 in order to secure business, according to industry insiders.
HPI has teamed up with Orange, the mobile phone operator, to launch M-Check, which gives customers access to vehicle information via their phone handset.
Paint manufacturers are beginning to take steps to catch up with the explosion in online trading.
Glass's Information Services has extended its Trader Desk vehicle marketing service for dealers by providing a link to Autopig.com, the online buying/selling service.
Auto Trader Interactive is overhauling its core database to handle growing demand from dealers and third party sources wanting to place used cars on the website.
Franchised and used car dealers posted significant growth in sales of older models last year, tightening their stranglehold over the private sector.
Daewoo has enhanced its used car operation with extended warranties and an improved vehicle exchange policy to offer customers a new car buying experience.
Parallel imports in the refinish sector are becoming as big a problem to paint manufacturers as they are to carmakers. Many paint companies remain tight-lipped about just how much these imports affect their business, but one or two company insiders are beginning to raise the alarm that the problem is growing – and dramatically.
Vauxhall chairman and managing director Nick Reilly believes Virgin Cars' recent announcement that it is to start selling used cars through its internet site is due to the company's poor sales of new cars.<p>
Motorpoint, the used car superstore operator, is reaching potential customers via web cafes in Granada motorway service stations.
Lookers believes it is starting to reap the benefit from investing £28m in its dealerships over the past 30 months. The group has announced increases of 6% in turnover and 11% in profits during the first six months of this year.
New companies offering aggressively-priced cars online dominated the US National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention in January. Dealers who flocked to Orlando, Florida, heard how CarOrder.com, among others, would revolutionise car selling. But last month CarOrder.com, set up with £65m backing from a Texas software company, became a major casualty as its website closed.
Ford's Focus and Puma are the two most popular models ordered through Virgin Cars which reports 1,500 orders in its first 16 weeks. The total value is put at £22m. Ian Lancaster, Virgin Cars chief executive, said the daily order rate had accelerated to 30 over the past six weeks.
Lloyds TSB plans to keep its Lloyds UDT and Chartered Trust motor finance brands separate “for the foreseeable future”, despite looking for annual £25m savings from the newly combined businesses.
Arriva has put its motor finance businesses up for sale as it continues its pull out of the automotive leasing and finance markets. The company said it was “in discussions” with other finance houses to sell Broadwood Finance and Arriva Finance Lease, which have loan books worth around £50m.
Jaguar has called on the Consumers' Association to produce evidence to support a damning survey finding on the “pricey” XJ saloon. A Which? press release, with the heading 'New Jaguars leave a quarter of owners stranded,' was challenged by the manufacturer.
Ford of Europe, which last month pledged rapid improvements at its London Dagenham plant following allegations of racism, has appointed a diversity director. Surinder Sharma was recruited from Littlewoods, the UK retailing and leisure business. He was equal opportunities head at BBC Television from 1990-95.
Vauxhall is set to introduce an extended service intervals programme across much of its car range by the end of the year, despite industry-wide opposition from franchised dealers.
Trevor Finn has told Pendragon's shareholders to expect “significant consolidation of car dealership networks” leading to a market dominated by as few as three or four companies.
