News - Page 2036

CAR manufacturers pre-registered 277 vehicles in the UK in December, worth a total of £2.4million.

SKODA has produced its fastest Fabia yet, with the introduction of a 2.0-litre version.

SAAB Contract Hire has achieved the British Standards Institute ISO9002 accreditation.

BMW has launched a fixed cost service and maintenance programme for its new 7-series, costing just £500 for five years and 75,000 miles.

THE fleet sector's ability to cope with change and meet its environmental challenges has come in for lavish praise from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

NATIONAL glass repair firm Autoglass sent a fleet hit squad into northern England and Scotland after the worst storms in a decade swept the area.

THE Home Office has been forced to defend comments made by minister John Denham when he appeared to say that the Government's policy was 'not to catch speeding motorists'.

RENAULT has introduced a clutchless manual version of the Clio called Quickshift5.

FORD'S new high performance Focus ST170 will go on sale in March priced from £15,995 on the road.

The pace of change in the leasing sector is unstoppable. There's the ongoing market battle between alliance partners, corporately-owned networks, banks and car manufacturers.

Global Telematics was formed in 1997 as a joint venture between European electronic giant Thales and European Telecom.

As soon as ABN Amro revealed it was putting LeasePlan on the market earlier this year, it was presumed that there would be no shortage of interested buyers.<br> Although many names were suggested as likely bidders over the past few months, it was GE Capital, and then Volkswagen that became favourites to acquire the huge LeasePlan operation.

CORPORATE sales will account for more than one third of Toyota's European business by 2005, according to Juan Jose Diaz Ruiz, executive vice-president, Toyota Motor Europe Marketing and Engineering.

In the end, it seemed that LeasePlan was just too big, too influential and too profitable to sell.

PSA Peugeot Citroen is backing the benefits of using cooking oil as an alternative fuel to petrol and diesel in a bid to reduce emissions.

Fleets in the UK have expressed little interest in sourcing cars from continental Europe, preferring to focus on factors such as dealer service.

The Canon Group has signed a major pan-European fleet deal with GE Capital Fleet Services in a move that will slash bills by almost €2 million over the next three years.

The Renault Laguna is still the safest upper medium fleet car on sale in Europe, according to the latest Euro NCAP crash tests.

The president of France's main car leasing association has sent out a confidence-boosting message to the industry in the light of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.

Electronic remarketing company AutoCascade - which plans to be operational in five key European countries within three years - is using new 'state-of-the-art' internet-based vehicle programmes.

One of the mainstays of the Spanish rental market, the SEAT Ibiza, is replaced next year.

Fiat Auto has completed a major reorganisation of its corporate structure to strengthen its position in the European fleet market.

A car-sharing company using environmentally-friendly vehicles is being launched in the Italian city of Turin.

Company and local authority fleets are set to play a crucial role in PSA Peugeot Citroen's bid to develop a cost-effective electric vehicle programme.

Lexus is targeting mainland Europe for the next stage of its expansion programme.

Volkswagen-owned Europcar is trialling groundbreaking flexible rental products as it focuses on becoming the number one daily rental firm in Europe by 2003.

Switching its corporate operations to franchises has reduced daily rental giant Budget's operating loss for the third quarter of the year.

Daily rental company easyCar.com will open two new European car rental sites in France and Switzerland by the end of this year.

A new financial study shows how the fiercely competitive European fleet segments can have a major impact on a manufacturer's profits.

Revolution is in the air at Nissan.