This is a monumental year in the history of our country, as the clock ticking past 11pm on 31 January has already signified. Although it’s hardly on the same seismic scale, 20 August marks another moment of national revival. It is the date of the return, after a 12-year gap, of a British Motor Show. For more than a decade ...

These are pivotal times for Lotus, the Norfolk-based sports car company that celebrated its 70th anniversary last year. It is currently embarked on a decade-long strategy, Lotus Vision 80, to determine what the business will look like by the time it reaches its 80th anniversary in 2028. Plans include a widespread transformation of the business that will bring new models, ...

Few cars in recent times have caused quite the fizz of expectation that is currently swirling around the new Defender. Land Rover is boldly billing its keenly-anticipated reinvention of its iconic model as a car ‘capable of great things’. It can be pretty confident already that the ultra-rugged newest Landie’s promise of greatness will include making a decent profit for ...

Times change and so do customers. The high-tech, connected world in which we live has moved the goalposts a long way in buyer savviness. It has also made working life notoriously tougher for dealers, battling shrinking profitability as so many consumers spend much more time exploring car choice online than in showrooms. As a long-time specialist motoring writer I have ...

It is hard to go far these days without encountering the S word. Sustainability is the obsessive mantra of 2019, and rightly so if we are to avoid sinking beneath a global blanket of plastic waste, or having our oceans forever polluted by its detritus. Even Glastonbury, the youthful mecca of music, succumbed to paying homage to sustainability, with 93 ...

If you are a man reading this, congratulations. You have won the game of life. The world is designed around you. Gender inequality manifests itself in many different ways. Some are relatively frivolous if somewhat irksome, such as the bathroom mirror in a Liverpool hotel I stayed in recently. Even standing on tiptoe, I could only view the top of ...

The rate at which a brave new world of car technology is hurtling towards us is accelerating. It means challenging times for showroom staff needing to keep constantly abreast of the latest developments, arming themselves with the expertise to guide customers through increasingly complex and unfamiliar territory. Already there is a raft of semi-autonomous driver aids to be navigated during ...

Motor Trader Awards judge Sue Baker believes first impressions are critically important when visiting dealerships Work takes me to a lot of dealer showrooms, both as a motor industry and retail motor trade observer keeping tabs on the scene, and as a Motor Trader Awards roving judge travelling across the country to visit businesses and personnel shortlisted for the industry’s ...

Over the past four years seismic restructuring has been underway at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Under Tata ownership, the group has been investing billions in new product across both brands, and that’s ongoing. It is also well advanced on a major revamp of the dealer network to streamline its structure and bring in common ownership of the two brands in ...

The Peugeot 508 makes its debut in a UK network that has been stress-tested over the past 12 months Almost every week a new SUV arrives on the UK scene, as the car market tide continues to ride a wave crest of SUV and crossover obsession. Over the past couple of months alone, launch events have been held for the ...