12:15 pm, January 22, 2015
Car Dealer’s Andy Entwistle was easily tempted by the car hire upgrade options
CAR DEALER has landed in San Francisco to report live from the show halls of the NADA Convention & Expo for the first time.
I’m here with operations director Andy Entwistle to not only bring you the latest news and trends from Stateside but also pick up some ideas for our very own event taking place this summer.
I can exclusively reveal that this year’s Car Dealer Conference & Automotive Expo will be held at the home of British Motor Racing, Silverstone, on June 9.
We plan to have around 75 trade exhibitors at the event alongside some top class speakers from the automotive world at a must-attend gathering for the British motor industry.
I am pleased to announce that Ken Ramirez, the managing director of Renault Dacia in the UK, is one of the first to sign up and will give an exclusive key note speech about how his team built up the new budget brand with such success.
Dacia is riding high with sales up 39.2 per cent in 2014 – and Ramirez will reveal how clever marketing and a no-nonsense sales approach have won customers over. I’m very much looking forward to hearing what he’s got to say.
We’ve also lined up Scott Sinclair, Google UK’s automotive manager, to deliver yet another of his spell-binding speeches to our delegates.
Dodge Challenger for a week – well it would have been rude not to…
At the event we will also announce the latest Top 150 Dealers on Twitter list – before it is revealed anywhere online – and hand out some awards in a special session where Sinclair will also give an exclusive speech to our social media savvy dealers.
There will also be Apprentice of the Year awards and unique networking session for Women In The Motor Trade. But more on both of those in the coming weeks.
Last year’s event was held at Rockingham and saw 500 dealers sign up to attend – it was a huge success and has forced us to find a bigger venue for 2015. Hence the move to Silverstone.
NADA 2015
We’ve got big plans for the Car Dealer Conference & Automotive Expo which is why Andy and I decided to make the trip to the world’s largest event here in San Francisco.
Thousands of dealers from across the world attend NADA – the National Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo – which is on for a week. On our plane were a delegation of UK Suzuki dealers and there are a large number of suppliers making the trip to the States.
We could have picked one of these to get us to the NADA halls…
An incredible 23,000 people will flow through the doors over the coming few days with speeches from Jay Leno, Florida governor Jeb Bush and NADA vice chairman Bill Fox to look forward to.
We’ll be pounding the halls taking in the sights and sounds and reporting as much of it back to you as possible – eight-hour delay permitting – so stay tuned to Car Dealer Magazine for more.
If you’re out at the event and would like to meet up, drop me a line via email (below) or on Twitter @CarDealerEd – we’d love to know who is here too.
In the meantime if you’d like to get in early for our Car Dealer Conference & Automotive Expo as an exhibitor please don’t hesitate to contact me here or Andy Entwistle here. Or call the office and speak to the team on (023) 9252 2434.
