9:48 am, March 18, 2016
TRADE Plates Live broadcasted a special edition of the show yesterday, with the Car Dealer Magazine team discussing the topics from the new issue.
Operations director Andy Entwistle, features editor Sophie Williamson-Stothert and managing director James Baggott joined Rebecca on the sofa this week.
‘Brexit’ has been a big topic this month, which hasn’t escaped scrutiny in the magazine. Baggott visited the SMMT recently and discussed the ‘in’ argument with them.
He explained: ‘The head of the SMMT has written a piece for the magazine this month and has a very compelling argument for why the automotive industry would want to stay in. It makes businesses’ lives a lot easier staying in the EU, but it’s become a migrant conversation which is wrong. This should be about how is this going to affect our lives.
‘I don’t think people realise, prices are going to go up. If we leave Europe car prices are going to go up.’
Williamson-Stothert added that manufacturers who are producing cars currently in the UK plan to continue.
‘There are some manufacturers that are still very keen to stay here,’ she said. ‘Honda, for example, has invested £2m into its Swindon plant and is going to build the new Civic there and export it for the first time to the US.’
Amid discussion of our upcoming CDX16, Entwistle pointed out an interesting trend in new businesses who are investing time and money in speaking to dealers.
‘There are an awful lot of people out there that want to talk to dealers about selling their stock,’ he said. ‘People are talking about trying to talk on the established brands – you’ve got Auto Trader, RAC, Motors and AA that everybody knows about. All of a sudden we’ve got a raft of new names.
‘Every week we get new people calling us and saying they want to take on the establishment, but they haven’t got the right approach, team or even deep enough pockets. But all of a sudden there’s a four or five people that are taking it seriously.’
Watch the full video here to see more about our investigation into the price of used Volkswagen’s, how PCPs are hitting independent dealers and our thoughts from the Geneva Motor Show.
Let us know your thoughts on any of these issues on the Car Dealer forum or by tweeting @tradeplatestv.
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