1:05 pm, July 14, 2026
The cream of the motor trade have been revealed in the Car Dealer Power Awards 2026.
Since March, car dealers across the UK have had their say on the best suppliers they do business with and the car manufacturers they represent.
We received around 2,000 responses to our responses this year, giving us a fantastic picture of which carmakers and suppliers are doing a great job.
The hugely deserved winners in 24 categories were revealed in a special video filmed by the Car Dealer team, which you can watch at the top of this story.
BMW held onto its Manufacturer of the Year gong, coming out on top in the carmakers category once again and followed up its win in 2025.
Toyota slipped to third place after Chinese brands Omoda/Jaecoo surprised all by splitting our winner and the Japanese powerhouse.
Volkswagen was the biggest climber, rising an incredible 14 places to finish sixth overall. It’s one of the biggest improvements we’ve seen in recent years and suggests dealers have noticed significant improvements across the franchise.
There were also five-place drops for Suzuki, BYD, MG and Hyundai, but finished dead last was Vauxhall.
The British brand dropped nine places to finish bottom of the manufacturer rankings. Dealers gave the brand reasonable scores for finance and forward planning, but lower marks across several other categories left it anchored to the foot of the table.
The full results, including detailed scores in the 13 categories car dealers voted in for each car maker, can be found here.
In the supplier categories winners and highly commended placed firms were named in 24 categories.
You can find out who won what in the video above and read what the winners of each category had to say in the posts below.
- Cleaning Product
- Recruitment Agency
- Used Car Valuations
- Consumer Lead Generation
- Dealer Management System
- Website Provider for Independent Dealers
- Website Provider for Franchised Dealers
- Provenance Checks
- Warranties
- Paint Protection
- Auction House
- Online Advertiser for New Cars
- Consumer to trade stock acquisition platform
- Trade to Trade stock acquisition
- Online Advertiser for Used Cars
- Finance (Sub-Prime)
- Finance (Prime)
- Finance Broker
- Personalised Video
- AI product
- Data insight
- Trade Insurance
- Extra Mile Award
- Product Innovation
The Car of the Year title was expanded in 2026 to three different categories. The Nissan Micra took the Small Car of the Year gong, while the Jaecoo 7 was named Mid-size Car of the Year and Chery Tiggo 9 the Large Car of the Year.
You can read about why dealers picked this trio in our dedicated story here.
For the full list of winners and highly commended companies, visit the dedicated Car Dealer Power 2026 page.
