CAP's manufacturer relationships manager Martin Ward scours the globe for the week's insider fleet intelligence

Monday

Over to Wolfsburg, the home of Volkswagen and a town of 120,000 inhabitants, of which more than 50,000 work at the plant and many thousands more are employed in related industries.

Currently, around 3,000 cars per day are built in Wolfsburg.

I was there to have a look at the new Polo, which is due on sale in Europe mid-year and in the UK around October.

There was an element of secrecy surrounding the new car, despite it being shown a few weeks ago at the Geneva show – we couldn’t even take photos!

We signed secrecy documents and Volkswagen said a heavy fine might be levied if we said anything about what we saw.

However, never one to keep one’s counsel, here are a few bits of information.

The car we saw was a pre-production model, but the quality looked much improved and Volkswagen said it would be even better on production cars.

It has grown by 54mm to 3,970mm long (remember the MKI Golf was 3,702mm long, so the Polo is now a big small car).

Hans Andree, head of international fleet sales, told me that Volkswagen had cut production to meet market demand and to avoid over-supply, which was working well.

He said the new Polo is the right car at the right time, as the public are turning more and more to this size of vehicle.

Wednesday

Many people have asked me recently when (and, indeed, if) a vehicle scrappage system will be introduced in the UK.

The simple answer is: I don’t know, and nor does anyone else, unless they’re a Government minister.

But I spend a lot of time with manufacturers and fleet companies across Europe, so I’ve seen and heard how it has worked on the continent.

The system seems to have been very successful in Germany, where more than 570,000 orders have been taken so far since the beginning of January, many of which have not yet been delivered due to lack of supply.

The cars ordered in Germany are mainly under 10,000 euros.

In my opinion, if a similar system was introduced in the UK a similar pattern would develop – small, cheap cars would be in demand, at a time when they are already in short supply.

We don’t build many sub-£10,000 cars in the UK, so supply would have to come from other countries, and, while we cannot be nationalistic, we would not be supporting any British car factory.

We would, however, be helping dealers, who are already having a good time selling small, economical cars.

The Government would also benefit by receiving around £1,400 in VAT per £10,000 car sold.

The other problem is that a driver in a £200 banger has to suddenly finance £8,000 (to buy a typical new small car) if he or she gets £2,000 for it in part-exchange.

This will cost around £255 per month in repayments over three years, which is beyond many people’s reach, encouraging them to borrow money they can’t afford to pay back.

Friday

Over to Frankfurt to have another look at a new car which is due out later this year.

Secrecy agreements prevent me saying much about it, but let’s just say it will be an important challenger in the fleet sector.

I first saw this car three months ago – and it wasn’t a successful reveal.

We saw the car in a darkened marquee, with poor lighting and the car painted in the wrong colour (dark grey).

First impressions count, and this car looked at its worst and impressions were not good.

Today we saw it in a completely different light – literally. It was outside in natural daylight and it looked 100% better.

The moral is: if a manufacturer shows a car for the first time to anybody, it has to be in perfect light, in the right colour, and wearing the right wheels.

That way, it will have stand a chance of being better received, and not leave the viewers feeling very disappointed.