8:10 am, June 28, 2013
CERTAIN members of the Car Dealer team have got thoroughly acquainted with the brand new Range Rover Sport this week.
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been just a little jealous. It would seem that every product which is signed off by Land Rover executives these days is a born class-leader.
Take a look at May’s SMMT figures and customers like their products too; Year-to-date stats show Land Rover is up nearly 17 per cent on the same period last year.
And don’t just think customers and us media types are happy with the British brand. In the last issue of the magazine, Andrew Dobromylski, MD of the Chesterfield-based Gordon Lamb dealer group, said Land Rover is their top-performer.
‘Land Rover is an anomaly at the moment – they are going great guns,’ he told us. ‘They are easily our best-performing brand.’ The dealer group slimmed down its portfolio over the past five years, and got rid of brands such as Lotus, Mitsubishi, Morgan and Chevrolet. It’s Land Rover which is making the big bucks.
It’s not just Gordon Lamb that say this either. Marshall Motor Group’s CEO, the ever-affable Daksh Gupta, has also told us in recent months that Land Rover, along with other premium brands, is exactly the type of franchise Marshall is excited about.
And this is why this week’s news about the John Clark Motor Group buying Pendragon sites amazes me.
The Scottish company has bought up four sites from the UK”s number one dealer group, most notably two Land Rover dealerships in Perth and Cupar.
John Clark says the acquisitions will ‘strengthen’ their place ‘at the forefront of the Scottish automotive sector and serve as a platform for future growth.’ The family-owned firm also says it has enjoyed a record first quarter this year with turnover of £108m.
Pendragon still holds around 20 of Land Rover sites and Jaguar sites each, but ditching four sites when the two brands are enjoying a renaissance seems a bit peculiar. Perhaps not all dealers are enjoying holding the two British premium brands after all?
