News - Page 2313

VOLKSWAGEN is so convinced by the benefits of driver training that it has started a training programme for its own drivers with NDI. Volkswagen Fleet has already established a driver training programme with NDI for company car drivers as part of the manufacturer's long term initiative to help customers cut the cost of motoring.

DRIVERS should use National Back Pain Week (October 6 to 11) to check whether their car seats are correctly positioned to protect them from aches and pains. Research by Vauxhall, which is running a car seat comfort shows that two thirds of drivers covering more than 10,000 miles per year suffer clinical back pain.

SEAT is to unveil its first station wagon at the London Motor Show later this month. The new five-door Codoba Vario, which brings the importer's expanding range to eight models, will become Britain's most compact estate when it is launched in January.

LUGGAGE retailer Salisbury's has switched from outright purchase to contract hiring cars for its field-based personnel in a single badge deal with Citroen. The nationwide company is leasing six turbodiesel Citroen Xantias complete with air conditioning through Hertz Leasing.

VOLVO is dropping the 940 estate from its line-up but is signing off with a 940 Celebration featuring a host of equipment and costing £18,425 on the road. The 940, one of the largest estate cars on the market, was originally launched as the 700 series in 1985 and revised as the 940 in 1990. More than 151,000 models have been sold, helping Volvo dominate the estate sector.

TWO thirds of people do not take environmental concerns into account when making travel choices, yet almost half the population says reducing travel pollution must be a top priority, according to a new RAC survey. The survey of 1,385 people found that they were concerned about environmental issues, but did not think of the impact which their own travel might be making.

AWARD-winning British Gas Services fleet managers Alan Gorfin and Paul Holmes will be competing for the same post after their employer decided to create a single position of fleet supremo. The duo scooped this year's Fleet News Security Award for the spectacular progress they made in reducing the huge British Gas Services fleet's insurance claims profile with a range of measures.

BCH Vehicle Management and Autoglass have become the first companies to kick-start Fleet Web - the new Internet-based paperless trading initiative - with the trial transmission of an electronic invoice. The companies demonstrated their commitment to the use of information technology in their businesses by successfully exchanging an invoice over the net.

VAUXHALL has ended its experiment in offering extended warranties to retail customers and Ford looks set to follow suit. Vauxhall's offer of three year/36,000 mile cover ended at the beginning of this month while Ford's is due to finish at the start of next month. Neither company said it had any immediate plans to reintroduce the offers.

LEADING fleet management and workshop software supplier Car Fleet Control has launched a new department dedicated to serving 'blue light' fleets. The company currently counts around 20 police forces and half-a-dozen fire brigades and ambulance services among its customers and has recently exhibited at both Ambex '97 - the ambulance trade show - and Fire '97.

PHH Vehicle Management Services has launched a new self-managed rental service for fleets in conjunction with Hertz Rent-a-Car. The new service has been launched to complement PHH's existing managed rental package for fleets which operates in conjunction with a number of rental companies.

RENAULT national fleet sales manager Mark Smith has been promoted to the role of commercial operations manager for the Renault Retail Group. The group, headed by David Addy, is a subsidiary of Renault UK and consists of 17 showroom sites around the UK and was recently boosted with the addition of Autoworld in Wolverhampton which is an all-marque used car centre - the first solus used car site in the Group.

ZENITH Vehicle Contracts has won a major deal to provide a personal contract purchase scheme for the 40,000 members of NatWest Staff Association, the bank's trade union. The scheme is called Zenith Personal Choice, and is aimed primarily at employees ineligible for a company car, or who want to buy a second car.

GAN Life & Pensions has outsourced its 200-vehicle fleet to Lease Plan in a contract which includes direct driver contact. The deal expands the business relationship between the two companies.

MOTOR group Ryland has seen profits jump in the first six months of the year, helped by strong growth in its contract hire operation Ryland Multifleet. Interim results show a 20% increase in pre-tax profits (excluding exceptional items) to £2.8m (1996: £2.35m), with total pre-tax profit hitting £3m. Turnover rose to £240.2m (1996: £175.15m).

REVITALISED Mazda will next year pitch a contender in Britain's fast-growing market for multi-purpose vehicles. Called Demio, the B-sector model will offer a high specification with an aggressive price of less than £9,000, revealed Mazda UK managing director David Heslop.

AROUND 140 fleet managers and leasing companies have been given a Peugeot 306 estate to test over the next three months. The new car goes on sale on October 1 with a choice of five engines - 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 litre 16v petrol engines and 1.9 litre diesel and turbo diesel - and trim levels mirroring the best-selling hatchback and saloon ranges - L, LX, GLX and the sporty badged XS and DTurbo. Prices range from £12,355 on the road for the 1.4L rising to £15,580 for the 1.9DTurbo.

GERMAN daily rental giant Sixt has secured four rental desks at Heathrow just days after making its first UK acquisition - and is promising further rapid expansion in the future. The aggressive car hire concern bought European Car Rental for an undisclosed sum last week - and had secured its first outlets in all four terminals at Heathrow within 48 hours.

BSkyB subsidiary Tele-Aerials Satellite has placed an order for 400 Vauxhall Combos through Kenning Car, Van and Truck Rental's Logic service. The Logic banner covers contract hire, flexi-hire, Select and short-term daily rental, a range of services which will allow Kenning to meet TAS's need for flexibility around peak demand such as Christmas or major sporting events.

THE National Consumer Council is calling for eco-labelling of cars, grading them according to their impact on the environment and fuel efficiency. It believes such a system - with vehicles graded A to G - would prove an important factor in fleet buying choices, which in turn would persuade manufacturers to do more to clean up their products.

VAUXHALL has fundamentally realigned the 1998 model year Omega to secure the car's position as the UK's best selling executive car and to win conquest sales from prestige marques. The facelifted range now starts at £18,850 on the road, despite a significant increase in equipment levels.

THE 1997 Fleet News Roadshows will focus on three key operating areas - cost control, taxation and contract hire and will be held on Tuesday, December 2, at Sopwell House, St Albans, Herts, and Tuesday, December 9, at The Donington Thistle Hotel, close to East Midlands Airport.

VAN drivers who spend up to 60 hours a week at the wheel are demanding the same creature comforts from manufacturers as their counterparts in cars. Professional drivers, who can cover as many as 50,000 miles a year, have had enough of being treated like second-class citizens and want the sort of extras passenger car owners now take for granted.

ANGER, confusion and bewilderment spread through the motor industry this week after it emerged that plans to introduce a twice-yearly car registration plate change starting in March next year had been postponed. As a result, it appears that there will be an August 1, 1998 plate change despite industry expectations that the recent introduction of the R-plate would be the last August 1 change.

THE Government's 200-strong car fleet looks set to be converted to gas power in a pioneering move which could be the catalyst for numerous other UK fleets to follow. The Government Car and Despatch Agency is responsible for looking after the fleet of Ford, Vauxhall, Rover, Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles used by Government ministers including Prime Minister Tony Blair, senior officials and VIPs and a further 63 vehicles, largely Ford Transits, making up the London-based inter-building courier service which operates nationwide. Cars are replaced on a three-year/60,000 miles basis.

COMPANY car drivers could face personal taxation based on private mileage and the fuel efficiency of their vehicles if the Government takes notice of the recommendations outlined by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. In an unprecedented follow-up to its controversial 1994 report on Transport and the Environment - which it hopes will form the backbone of Labour's forthcoming transport White Paper - the Royal Commission says no action has been taken to tackle the 'distortions' in car use it claims the present company car taxation regime produces.

VAUXHALL has extended its summer finance offers for vans until October 31. The offers apply to Corsavan, Combo, Astravan and Arena, and include a deposit allowance of £500, a flexible leasing programme called Smartlease, and a special finance rate for deposits starting at 20%. Fleets of up to 99 vehicles can take advantage.

TATA has launched three budget-priced derivatives of the Loadbeta light commercial range targeted at business users operating small fleets. The Loadbeta Access 2.0D pick-up and 2.0D van are available at £8,219 - a saving of more than £900 each - and the Gurkha Nepal 2.0D dual purpose vehicle, based on the standard Gurkha, costs £8,495, saving £1,900.

RENAULT is aiming to put the driver first with the debut models of a new van range designed to put the French manufacturer back on top of the European light commercial vehicle market. The Transit-sized Master and Fiesta-sized Kangoo are the first fruits of a van programme which, in collaboration with General Motors Europe, will ultimately rejuvenate Renault's entire light commercial vehicle range.

RECORD sales and profits have been revealed by Kwik-Fit for the half year to August 31 as the company continues to expand. Already Europe's largest independent automotive parts repair specialists, the company has an aggressive expansion programme for the second half of the year with 30 more centres scheduled to open in the UK and a further 25 in Holland and Belgium. The company is also looking at expanding into Germany and Scandinavia.