News - Page 2220

FLEETS will form the backbone of a drive to clean up vehicle emissions, according to the first report from the Government's Cleaner Vehicles Task Force. The task force is co-chaired by Ford of Britain chairman and managing director Ian McAllister, and brings together Government, industry and special interest groups, published its report on Tuesday with recommendations on how climate change and air pollution can be tackled.

VOLVO dealership Hildenborough, near Tonbridge, Kent, has won a prestigious deal to supply cars to a chauffeur firm in the heart of London. Miles & Miles Chauffeur Drive, based in Kensington, has decided to take on a fleet of 60 Volvo S80 saloons, to replace an existing fleet of Vauxhall Omegas, over the next two years to join its fleet of 20 stretched limousines.

SUB-100 fleets are being targeted by c.2K Automotive Solutions following the creation of a new specialist telesales team. Smaller fleets are being encouraged to look at contract hire rather than use outright purchase, so removing the administrative and financial difficulties of buying and disposing of fleet vehicles.

THE introduction of road pricing systems to solve traffic congestion chaos across Europe should result in fair, efficient and transparent systems with users 'paying for what they get and getting what they pay for', according to European Union Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock.

TAKE-OVER fever is gripping daily rental companies as residual value losses and cut-throat pricing - with Ford Mondeos available for as little as £12 a day - hit the limited resources of smaller operators. Falling new car prices have hit the nearly new-car market hard as manufacturers including Ford and Rover have wiped thousands of pounds off their price lists, which has a direct knock-on effect on the values of six-month-old cars.

THE potential cost and environmental benefits of running its vehicle fleet on liquefied petroleum gas is to be investigated by Milton Keynes Council. It is advertising to replace five diesel-powered Ford Fiesta cars in its waste and energy management department with dual-fuel vehicles.

SEAT has vowed to continue developing and producing diesel engines for the UK market despite uncertainty over future demand for 'oil-burners'. Fleet diesel sales dropped for the sixth month in succession in June despite manufacturers ploughing billions of pounds into launching new diesel engine technology.

CAMELOT, the National Lottery operator, turned out to be the winner when Dial 'handed over' a cheque for £58,520. It represented the total savings on its 250-vehicle fleet since the vehicle finance and management service company was awarded the solus contract in 1994.

FORMER Avis Rent a Car director of purchasing Steve Maltby, who took early retirement last year, has been appointed fleet and operations director of Europcar. He said: 'I have been in this industry nearly all my life and my new role will be to streamline the business and introduce new working practices which will help to improve levels of customer service and profitability.'

KENNING Car, Van and Truck Rental has awarded a contract for a new fleet management software system to Car Fleet Control. Kenning has signed up to a new 40-user version of the Eurofleet system in the biggest deal this year so far for CFC.

AUCTION houses are fighting back against alternative forms of disposal by spotlighting the unique and efficient service they offer to fleets. Although attention has turned towards growing new services, including Internet sales or fleets running in-house forecourts, auctions say their vital role in disposing of large numbers of vehicles and providing value added services cannot be ignored.

PHH Vehicle Management system support analyst Mark Harris has a place booked at next year's Monaco Grand Prix after his team won the first Autoglass Fantasy Football SuperLeague. He selected his 'Harry's Hackers' team after studying players' statistics and listening to football gossip in the PHH office in Swindon.

NATIONAL Car Rental has signed a one-year deal to supply vehicles to the production team of the television drama series Casualty.

HERTZ is offering discounts in leisure and business rental to 40 million members of a pan-European benefit scheme run by AA Europe.

CONNECT Car Rental has set up a new sales and reservation office in Saudi Arabia as part of a business expansion in the Middle East.

PRACTICAL Car & Van Rental has taken 75 Fiat Puntos from c.2K Automotive Solutions. The hatchbacks, all on short-term contracts, will be used throughout the UK during their time on the rental company's 3,000-vehicle fleet.

FLEET sales increased 2.7% year-on-year to 88,049 last month (June 1998: 85,745), taking fleet sales for the first six months of 1999 to 545,631 - 2.1% behind last year's halfway figure of 557,358.

THE deepest and most wide ranging investigation into fleet business in the industry's 30-year history looks set to leave fleet discounts alone. In an exclusive interview with FNN sister title, Fleet News, Denise Kingsmill, chairman of the Competition Commission's New Cars Inquiry, said discounts were a standard function of a competitive market. 'It's normal that, if you buy large numbers of a product, you expect discounts,' she said.

ROVER will play a crucial role in the future of a 'totally independent' BMW, more than 300 of Britain's top fleet chiefs have been told. Rover Cars managing director Jim Macdonald and Dr Henrich Heitmann, BMW board member responsible for Rover and BMW sales worldwide, called the fleet bosses and Rover dealers to a briefing on the future of the troubled car manufacturer in Birmingham.

FLEET diesel sales dropped for the sixth month in succession despite manufacturers ploughing billions of pounds into launching new diesel engine technology. Although total new car diesel sales increased from 25,553 in June last year to 26,560 last month, fleet diesel sales dropped 2.9% year-on-year from 15,455 to 15,005. In the first six months of this year, total diesel sales were 8.1% down at 164,139 with fleet sales down 11.9% at 92,670.

BUDGET Rent a Car and Vipre, part of the Budget Group, have teamed up to launch a new type of commuting solution called driveshare. The scheme is based on the use of a luxury minibus by groups of up to eight for their daily journey to and from work. One member of the group becomes the nominated driver and is responsible for looking after the vehicle when it is not is use. He or she usually travels free while the others share the expense of operating the vehicle.

FLEET managers are being told they must champion the cause of training at boardroom level in order to stop their profession being under-valued and their companies losing money through avoidable inefficiencies. The call has come from fleet consultancy Fleet Audits which has had to postpone an intermediate fleet management course, due to take place this month, until September because only one person had signed up to take part.

THE Retail Motor Industry Federation has called on dealers to record vehicle mileages at every service as part of a major new industry-wide campaign to stamp out 'clocking'. The RMI Mileage Scheme will help to build more detailed vehicle mileage histories, using data collected at every opportunity during servicing, MOTs and repairs.

AUDI has announced that the A3 can now be ordered in five-door format for delivery from mid-August, excluding the S3 quattro, at a price premium of about £650 over the hatchback. All five-door models include rear electric windows, third head restraint and child-proof door catches, in addition to the hatchback specification. The 90bhp diesel also joins the 110bhp in the engine line-up and the 110bhp range is having its price cut by 6%.

NORTHGATE Motor Holdings' parent company Goode Durrant, the van hire group, has announced plans to double the size of its fleet and outlets as it revealed pre-tax profits of more than £27million. Despite a loss in the first half of the year for the group of £900,000 - blamed on falling residual values - it believes the worst is over and the company is now ready to implement a five-year growth strategy helped by stability in the vehicle hire market which has seen rental rates stabilise.

DEBIS Car Fleet Management has announced the shape of its new management team following the acquisition of Masterdrive Leasing & Rental. The new board - which faces the task of doubling the company's fleet size over the next five years - will be led by the former managing directors of the two companies, Hubertus von Zastrow and Bob Rider. They become joint managing directors, with von Zastrow responsible for finance and operations, and Rider responsible for sales and marketing.

Mitsubishi importer Colt Car Company is to make a U-turn from the traditional fleet market as part of moves to head back to profitable trading. It will make a progressive retreat from daily rental business under plans aimed at changing the way the company operates in the corporate sector. Instead, smaller fleets and user-choosers are being targeted in a new drive to channel every business sale through the company's dealer network.

A COMPANY car driver who was caught by police reading a newspaper while travelling at 80mph behind the wheel of his Vauxhall Vectra on a motorway has been fined £850 in Stirling and banned from driving for two years. Charles Slorach, accounts manager with Dundee-based wholesale grocers C.J. Lang and Sons, overtook an unmarked police vehicle on the M9 near Stirling with the Daily Record on his steering wheel.

RENAULT is to produce its Kangoo car in right-hand-drive for the UK market. On sale in the UK from October, it will be available with a choice of two engines - a 1.4-litre 75bhp petrol or 1.9-litre 65bhp diesel. Prices and specification will be announced closer to launch but it is expected to cost less than £11,000. The van version was introduced in the UK in April and more than 8,000 unit have been sold. Renault is confident of selling up to 10,000 of the car variant in a full year.

LYONS Sleeman and Hoare, the world's fourth largest firm of architects in the retail sector, has awarded Venson Professional Contracts the contract to supply its 70-strong fleet. Venson Professional Contracts, an off-shoot of Esher-based Venson Group, has clinched a number of key contracts already this year following the appointment of managing director Samantha Medley.