Car dealers in the UK have enjoyed their largest jump in sales for nearly two years, recent figures have revealed.

The sales in May 2012 were the largest in a long time as a total of 162,288 new cars took to the road.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had their forecasts smashed by the figure that is up nearly 8% on May 2011.

Car dealers can be in a good mood thanks to this but it is also a welcome boost to the economy as the act of purchasing a new car is clearly a sign of confidence.

The rise was partly due to a 14% increase in sales to private buyers and companies have also been seen to show confidence as they have updated their vehicles – for example, fleet sales were up nearly 5% last month.

SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt told the BBC: “May’s 7.9% increase in new car registrations is good news for the motor industry and the UK economy.

“The consistent climb in new car registrations during the first five months of the year suggests that confidence is returning, despite financial uncertainty in the eurozone.”

The best selling car in that successful month was the Vauxhall Corsa, however, the Ford Fiesta remains the most popular car in the UK so far this year, with 50,507 sold in 2012 to date.

The UK automotive industry has an annual turnover of about £49bn, accounting for more than 10% of total exports, and employs 700,000 people.

Are you a car dealer who is interested in advertising your stock on Friday-Ad Motors? Contact us today on 01273 837855 to discuss your advertising requirements in more detail.

Picture: Stuart Chapman

Here at Friday-Ad Motors, we’ve been very busy improving the service that we offer to both buyers and sellers of cars.

You may have noticed that we’ve recently made some improvements to the site. We’ve given the site a fresher more modern look, and have introduced new features to make searching for a car to buy even easier.

Have these changes resulted in an improved quality of car buyer browsing the site? This is an important question to consider for sellers, as more relevant and higher quality buyers will translate into higher quality enquiries on sellers vehicles which in turn will significantly increase the chances of making a sale.

We can measure this quality using a variety of metrics:

• Average number of pages per visit – An increase in the number of pages made per visit is a sign of car buyers becoming highly engaged with the website’s content.
• Average visit duration – An increase in visit duration is a further indicator of car buyers becoming highly engaged with the website’s content.
• Bounce rate – Bounce rate is the number of single page visits made to the site. A decreasing bounce rate means fewer one page visits and more engaged car buyers.

We’ve trawled the web and have handpicked a selection of the funniest and most bizarre car videos for you. Check out the clip of David Coulthard catching a golf ball in a Merc, some nutters skydiving in car and the classic opening scene from the Italian Job. Enjoy…

David Coulthard catches 178mph golf ball in Mercedes-Benz SLS
In this clip, professional golfer Jake Shepherd and former F1 driver David Coulthard break the strange world record for the longest golf shot to be caught in a moving car. It is a brave man that tries to catch a rock hard ball that is moving at 178mph in a brand new Mercedes.

Skydiving in a car
An amazing video of four nutters in a convertible falling from the back of an aeroplane. Need I say more?

Opening scene from The Italian Job
When it comes to car-related films, there are few that have held there place in popular culture as well as this 1969 classic.

The trip with Steve Coogan – ‘We rise at daybreak’
OK, so not strictly a car-oriented video, but it is set in a car. This is a fantastic three minute clip from the excellent sitcom The Trip, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Well worth a watch… Gentlemen to bed!

Senna – The official UK trailer
If you have not seen this film then you really should stop what you are doing, watch this trailer, head to your nearest video rental shop, rent this film and watch it. It is a moving and extensive account of the life and career of one of F1’s most endearing characters – Ayrton Senna.

Honda – The Cog
This is one of the most incredible car adverts of all time. Rube Goldberg directs this two minute clip of all the parts of the car interacting together in one long chain reaction. It really is amazing…

OK Go – Needing/Getting music video
Now, obviously we aren’t sure how authentic this video is, but still, it is pretty amazing. OK Go are almost more famous for their music videos than they are for their music, there is the treadmill one, the dancey one, and even the one directed by Rube Goldberg that is similar to the Honda advert above. And here is another prime example of what they can do, made in partnership with Chevrolet.

Bungee jumping car
Chevrolet literally ‘launched’ its newest small car, the Sonic – by tying the sub-compact to a bungee chord and rolling it off a ten-story structure at the Long Beach Convention Center. We have already had skydiving so now it is time for bungee jumping.

Are you a car dealer who is has questions about your account or are interested in advertising your stock on Friday-Ad Motors? Contact us today on Tel: 01273 837855 to discuss your advertising requirements in more detail.

The release of the Vauxhall Ampera is set to boost the uptake of electric cars, according to Vauxhall, who says that its new model will end fears over “range anxiety” due to limited battery life.

The Ampera was launched in the US last year and did very well and it is expected to do well in the UK too.

Last year, the then transport secretary Phillip Hammond said: “2011 could be remembered as the year the electric car took off”, as he launched the grant scheme that covers nine different models. But, according to The Guardian, only around 1,000 were sold last year, and figures for first quarter sales in 2012 show that registrations of new electric cars have largely flatlined, and only half of the allocated budget for the grant scheme is likely to be taken up.

Of the 563,556 cars sold in Q1, only 278 were pure electric models, up from 218 on the year before. However, Vauxhall is aiming to sell 3,500 units of the car, which is worth £30,000, this year, or a total of 5,000 in a full year. A spokeswoman told The Guardian its target of 10,000 sales across Europe in 2012 was “in our reach quite easily”.

The main selling point of the new Ampera is that when its battery runs out after 50 miles of electric power, a petrol engine provides back-up power for a further 310 miles. But because the petrol still drives the electric motor, the company says the vehicle should be considered a “range extender”, not a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius.

This week the car is sent to 24 dealers across the UK and the company are looking forward to seeing how well it does in its first year on the market.

Could this be the beginning of a new wave of people buying electric cars?

Why not take a look at other fuel-efficient cars on Friday Ad Motors now?

Picture: The Charging Point 

The Friday-Ad Motors website is all set to be revamped and soon it will look and feel very different. But what does that mean? Well this will hopefully make a great difference to users and also to the dealers selling on the site.

Users
The user experience will be vastly improved and the site will run smoother and be more enjoyable to browse. Users will be able to reach more relevant results more quickly than ever before, which will create a far more seamless browsing experience.

Dealers
Dealers will also see a huge benefit from these fantastic changes. The newer and smoother browsing process will encourage users to stay on the site for longer, which means that they will be spending more time browsing your stock. Users will also be able to reach your relevant stock far easier than ever before which will hopefully make it far easier for everyone involved.

These changes are intended to not only make the site far easier and far more enjoyable to browse, but also to help boost the site to becoming the marketing leader for user experience in the car-classified industry. Which means that we will hopefully be able to attract a larger audience of customers to the site.

Once the changes have been implemented and the new features are up and running we will then look into making further design improvements which will aim to improve the user experience further and will also look to improve the technology being utilised by Friday-Ad Motors.

So, keep an eye out for the new-look Friday-Ad Motors this May.

Friday-Ad Motors is proud to announce that in addition to the 120,000 or so weekly visits we get to our site, we are now gaining an additional 20,000 visits every week from mobile traffic.

This traffic is heading straight to the mobile optimised site, which gives people the ability to browse your cars on the move. It also gives our users greater choice and most importantly, it gives you, the dealer, a better response.

When you combine the main site’s audience and the mobile audience, the number of users visiting Friday-Ad Motors is now far greater than it was a year ago.

The combined total is now topping 140,000 visitors a week, which is over 20% greater than it was this time last year.

According to internet giant Google, there are around 23 million smartphones in the UK, which is around 50% of the mobile phones in the entire country. This means that more and more people are accessing the internet using their phones.

So by optimising our mobile site for smartphone users we are making their browsing experience easier and making it easier for them to purchase one of your vehicles.

Here at Friday-Ad Motors we will continue to explore options for further improving the site experience, and growing traffic to the site. Ultimately this should benefit you, the dealers, by providing you with increased leads.

Photo by The GameWay

Here at Friday-Ad Motors we’ve randomly selected a winner for our ‘WIN a camera!’ competition. The competition was open to all our dealers.

The prize was a high-quality, touch screen, 14.1 MP Panasonic Lumix camera, and the lucky winner chosen from all the dealers who entered was Mr Robin Kennedy!

Mr Kennedy is the Dealer Principal at Kennedy Brothers, which is an Authorised Ford Repairer Service Dealer in East Sussex.

Kennedy Brothers is a family business which has been going for 65 years, and today’s winner, Mr Kennedy is second generation and was delighted to hear that he had won the prize.

In fact it seems that this couldn’t have come at a better time for Mr Kennedy, who said: “My camera has just packed in and I had been thinking about which one to get, but it seems you have made the decision for me.”

The £300 camera will be put to good use taking photos of cars for sale although Mr Kennedy did say that he may have to lend it to his wife from time to time for the odd holiday snap.

Mr Kennedy went on to say: “This is must be my lucky week, it is the second competition I have won recently, maybe I should play the lottery.”

All there is to do now is send Mr Kennedy his prize and wish him happy snapping!

Attention everyone!

Here at Friday-Ad Motors, we’re running a fantastic incentive which will benefit car buyers and motor dealers.

Anyone who purchases a car which has been advertised by a motor dealer on our site will receive a £20 Amazon voucher. How good is that?

Benefits for Dealers
So how does this benefit us? I hear all of you dealers asking. Well, the good news is that this £20 voucher is only redeemable from your motor dealership, which means we are driving more users to your content first.

Another piece of good news for all of you dealers out there is the fact that you won’t have to pay anything to become a part of this promotion as it is already included in your current package. Also, only ‘trade’ ads will carry this promotion which means more users will be browsing your stock.

The promotion will also drive much more traffic to our site, meaning more potential leads for you and it will also provide you with another measure of the response we are generating on your behalf.

Wondering how this promotion will work? Well there is no need to worry, simply email us at motorsales@friday-ad.co.uk or call us on 01273 837946, providing us with the details of any sales you have made where this promotion has been mentioned and we will arrange the rest.

Benefits for Customers
The benefits for all you customers out there is obvious, you get a money off voucher when you purchase a car which has been advertised by a motor dealer. You can spend that £20 on a bunch of books, DVDs, CDs, or you could even put it towards a larger purchase, it really is up to you!

Peugeot and Citroën are both reducing the price of their pure electric cars to try and stimulate the sales of the models. The models in question are the Citroën C-Zero and the Peugeot iOn, which have been slashed in price dramatically from £33,155 to £26,216.

This new price is a whopping £6,939 cheaper than the original price, and once you take into account the government’s Plug-in Car Grant Scheme, which can save you up to £5,000 extra, people will now be able to purchase either of these models for just £21,216.

The Plug-in Car Grant Scheme is a fantastic initiative set up by the government where motorists who purchase a qualifying ultra-low emission car can receive a grant of up to £5,000. As of December last year (2011), over 800 claims had been made using the scheme, with Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) data showing that 1,052 cars eligible for the Grant were registered over the same period.

Another vehicle which is eligible for the Plug-In Car Grant is the Renault Zoe, which costs £13,650 once you have received the subsidy, however, this car does not include the cost of the vital battery pack. Whereas the iOn and the C-Zero do include this in their £21,216 figure.

To go with the new price of its C-Zero model Citroën is also set to increase the size and coverage of its electric vehicle (EV) specialist dealer network. The number of specialist dealerships will almost double from 11 to 21 dealers and the newer sites will be located in UK cities which are not already covered by the original Citroën EV network.

Peugeot will be looking to their new pricing to hopefully increase the number of iOns they sell this year. In 2011, they only managed to sell 125 of them and out of this number, virtually none of them were sold to private individuals, with local government or business organisations buying the majority of the models. Citroën were even less successful last year as, in the same period, they only managed to sell 46 of their C-Zero models.

Both Peugeot and Citroën will be expanding their EV range in 2013 when they will both be releasing electric vans. Citroën will be releasing their Berlingo van and Peugeot will be releasing their Partner van and both models will qualify for the government’s Plug-in Car Grant Scheme, with a maximum amount of £8,000 towards the purchase price of electric commercial vehicles.

The government began the Plug-in Car Grant in order to help make the whole-life cost of a qualifying car more comparable with petrol or diesel equivalents. The Department for Transport website states that ‘Over time, as manufacturers begin to make these cars in greater volumes, the costs of production should begin to fall. This will help to make an ultra-low carbon car a realistic option for anyone looking to buy a car’.

Picture: FaceMePLS 

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Last week Nissan announced that it will be reviving the much loved Datsun brand in a bid to target drivers in emerging markets around the world.

The good news is that the car manufacturer says that it plans to invest $400 million (£251 million) into Indonesia over the next two years and that it will also be targeting sales in India and Russia.

The huge cash injection will enable them to double hiring and production by 2014, and they will also plan plant expansions and new car dealerships in Southeast Asia.

The bad news is that it’s unlikely the Datsun will return to the UK.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn spoke about the Datsun saying: “It’s a green car, affordable car, small displacement, high local content. It’s going to be a generous car.”

The car manufacturer stopped making Datsuns in 1981, however, earlier this month rumours began to spread that they were planning to revive the brand in emerging markets.

Nissan is aiming to be the number three car manufacturer in Indonesia by increasing sales of a cheaper, multipurpose vehicle, which is perfect for city travel and is tailored to the market. The current top selling vehicle in Indonesia is its minivan, the Grand Livina.

Recently Nissan has been aggressively targeting emerging markets. They teamed up with Ashok Leyland Ltd in India, and they also recently announced plans to try and triple their market share in Brazil by 2016 with the aid of a brand new factory.

Source: elephant.co.uk

Picture: Hugo90 

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