Ford Retail is targeting ex-armed force personnel to fill sales vacancies. The factory-owned dealer group teamed up with Talent Q, an employee assessment firm. Talent Q conducted a study of 205 sales executives at Ford Retail and compared their results on personality against their sales profits, volumes and customer service rating over a four-month period. The study found that the best sales employees were open communicators with strong verbal reasoning skills and an ability to build rapport. However, those who rated highest for customer service were strong in empathy and were supportive, relaxed and consultative. “Our philosophy is to create customers for life, not just make an initial sale, so we need to recruit well-rounded people who can perform well in both the sales and the customer service aspects of the role,” said Ford Retail HR director Sharon Ashcroft. “We’ve started to attend careers…

Ford will sell its forthcoming Mustang and top-end Vignale models exclusively through a small number of metropolitan based Ford Stores from summer 2015. The Blue Oval is piloting its new Ford Store retail concept at two of its flagship outlets; Peoples Cars in Bootle and Ford Retail’s Edgware Road site in London. The Ford Stores will see participating showrooms display all of the brand’s expanding car and van line-ups with dedicated areas for the all-new right hand drive Mustang and Vignale-badged models, the brand’s new luxury sub-brand, which will be available on the new generation Mondeo as well as the S-Max. “There will be some product exclusivity for the Ford Stores. Mustang and Vignale will be the preserve of the Ford Stores,” said Ford chairman and managing director Steve Ovenden. Ovenden confirmed that measures would also be in place to facilitate customers wishing to…

Values of used cars dipped in April as high numbers of March plate-change trade-ins hit the market. In the first two weeks of the month, for 3yr/60,000 mile vehicles, values fell -2.6% in the City Car and SUV segments. Most other segments saw falls of between -1.6% and -1.8%. Conversely, Convertibles, Coupe Cabriolets, Luxury Executive and Supercars saw rises of between +0.1% and +0.7%. “For most mainstream cars the increase in supply, coupled with a reduction in demand has begun to undermine the unusually robust market that has characterised the past year,” said CAP. Cap said its April Black Book monthly print publication was “rapidly overtaken” by the market and that the May edition will see values taking a bigger hit than a year ago. CAP said the announcement of a book drop in May highlights the difference between digital live market value reporting…

SUVs are some of the fastest selling used cars on UK forecourts, according to Glass’s. Top of the charts is the Nissan Qashqai, which is taking 25.3 days to sell. It is joined in the top 10 by three other SUVs, Peugeots 3008, which takes 28.9 days to shift, the 2008 (28.1)and the Audi Q3 (27.5) Also in the Top 10 were the Hyundai i10, taking 26.9 days to sell, the Volkswagen Bora (27.3), Audi Q3 (27.5) and Audi TT (28). Rupert Pontin, chief car editor at Glass’s, said: “These results not only reinforce the popularity and desirability of the Qashqai but emphasise the growing importance of crossover SUVs in the used as well as new markets.” Glass’s also revealed the slowest selling cars on UK forecourts with the Vauxhall Cascada the worst performer, taking almost 103 days to sell. It was followed by the…

Auto Trader; which is the first port of call for most people looking to purchase a used car has announced plans to flag-up any car being sold on its website which has been the subject of a category C or D insurance write-off. The move follows an agreement to use Motor Insurance Anti Fraud and Theft Register data in an automated process on all dealer advertised stock. Affected cars will be highlighted with a yellow circle displaying either the letter C or D, the icon will be presented on every page listing the car, including searches on mobile devices. Similar changes will be applied to motorcycles and vans in the near future. “Dealers are already required by law to declare category C or D cars to buyers, and many have approached us calling for this change,” said Jason Biffin, Auto Trader consumer marketplace director. “We…

Pinkstones has been appointed as a Subaru dealer in Staffordshire. Pinkstones is a family-owned business that represents Toyota, Lexus and MG in the Newcastle on Trent and also has a used car business. Steve Wild, dealer principal at Pinkstones Subaru, said: “We are delighted about bringing Subaru to Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.” Paul Tunnicliffe, managing director of Subaru UK, said: “The team at Pinkstones has proven popular with motorists across Staffordshire. “This is a result of a high level of technical knowledge and an ability to develop positive, long-lasting relationships with owners. “We’re certain that Pinkstones Subaru will uphold these values in the region,” he said. Subaru has been steadily adding to its network with recent appointments in Bridgend, Norwich, Ringwood and Nottingham. Original Story taken from Motor Trader – http://www.motortrader.com/latest-news/subaru-adds-pinkstones-network/

Motorpoint, the national car supermarket chain, has enjoyed its best ever month of trading after selling 3,738 new and nearly-new cars in March. The business, rated number one in the Motor Trader Top  50 Independent Dealers, was founded in 1998 and operates across seven sites. Its previous record was 3,271 units in August 2013. “We are absolutely delighted to have completed our best trading month ever. We enjoyed a strong start to 2014 but even we never imagined we would sell so many cars in one month,” said Mark Carpenter, managing director. The group said its record month completes a record breaking financial year ended March 2014 with 36,000 units sold, up 21% on the previous financial year Original Story Taken from Motor Trader – http://www.motortrader.com/latest-news/motorpoint-hits-record-breaking-month-march/

Land Rover has teamed up with Richard Branson’s commercial spaceline, Virgin Galactic. The partnership will see Land Rover vehicles being used by the Virgin Galactic team. Land Rover will base vehicles at the Virgin Galactic test centre in the Mojave Desert, California and at its New Mexico base, Spaceport America. The partnership was announced on board USS Intrepid, an ex-aircraft carrier anchored on the Hudson River, New York. Land Rover brought a full-size replica of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise to New York, where it joined the British Airways Concorde and the Space Shuttle Enterprise upon the Intrepid. Like the Space Shuttle, SpaceShipTwo is a reusable human spacecraft. Shown alongside SpaceShipTwo was Land Rover’s Discovery Vision Concept, a vision of Land Rover’s future family of Discovery vehicles. The vehicle uses augmented reality technology to display a see-through view of the terrain ahead. Richard Branson, founder of…