Car Dealer Podcast Mar 6, 2026

Peter Waddell court case continues, DxB snaps up Harwoods JLR & BMW ops, and car finance redress scheme to be confirmed this month – with Tony Sciascia & Marc Palmer, episode 246

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Company

Autotrader

Autotrader is a website where people can buy and sell cars. Dealers use it to find customers who want to buy cars.

Car

Mercedes-Benz CLK

The Mercedes-Benz CLK is a fancy two-door car that’s nice to drive and looks good. People sometimes worry about how much it costs to keep it running after many years.

Company

Next Gear

Next Gear helps people buy cars by finding good deals from different dealers, making it easier to get a fair price.

Company

Carwow

Carwow is a website that helps people see different prices from car sellers so they can choose the best deal when buying a new car.

Concept

franchised retailer

A franchised retailer is a car dealer that is officially allowed by a car company to sell their new cars. They also help with repairs and warranties from the car company.

Concept

used cars

Used cars are cars that other people have owned before. Dealers sell these cars after checking them to make sure they work well.

Car

BMW M4

The BMW M4 is a fast and sporty car made by BMW. It's known for being fun to drive and having a strong engine.

Car

The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is a car that uses both gas and electricity to drive. It can run on just electricity for short distances, which helps save gas and is better for the environment. It first came out in 2014 and many people liked it.

Concept

official importer

An official importer is a company that brings cars from the factory to a country and sells them there with permission from the car maker.

Brand

MG

MG is a car brand from Britain that used to make sports cars and now makes SUVs and electric cars.

Brand

Kia

Kia is a car company from South Korea that makes cars and SUVs that many people find affordable and dependable.

Brand

Hyundai

Hyundai is a big car company from South Korea that makes many types of cars, including small cars and SUVs, and is known for good value.

Term

add-ons

Add-ons are extra things you can buy when you get a car, like special protection or extra services, but you don't have to get them if you don't want to.

Term

paint protection

Paint protection is like a shield for your car's paint that stops it from getting scratched or faded by the sun and weather, so your car looks nice for longer.

Term

service plan

A service plan is like paying ahead for regular check-ups and fixes for your car so you don't have to worry about big repair bills later.

Term

part exchanges

Part exchange means you give your old car to the dealer when buying a new one, and they use it to help pay for the new car. The dealer then sells your old car to someone else.

Concept

electric cars

Electric cars run on batteries and don't use gas, so they don't pollute the air like regular cars. They are becoming more popular as people want cleaner ways to get around.

Concept

plug-in hybrid

Plug-in hybrids are cars that can use both gas and electricity. You can charge their batteries by plugging them in, so they can drive some distance without using gas, which saves fuel and reduces pollution.

Concept

supply

Supply means how many cars are available for sale. If there aren't many, it can be tough to find the car you want.

Car

Nissan Leaf

The Nissan Leaf is a car that runs only on electricity, so it doesn't use gas and doesn't pollute the air. Many people use it for driving around town because it's easy to charge and drive.

Car

Volkswagen Egolf

The e-Golf is a version of the Volkswagen Golf that runs only on electricity instead of gas. It drives quietly and doesn't produce pollution when you drive it.

Car

Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger is a big, fast car that looks sporty but can also be used every day. People talk about it because sometimes it can have problems, like with its battery or engine parts, which might need fixing.

Car

Dodge Challenger

The Dodge Challenger is a cool, fast car that looks like old muscle cars from the past. People talk about it when they discuss new car brands from other countries and how they might change what cars people want to buy.

Brand

Tesla

Tesla is a company that makes electric cars, which run on batteries instead of gas. They are famous for being high-tech and helping the environment.

Brand

Seat

Seat is a car company from Spain that makes cars people can afford and enjoy driving. They are part of a bigger car company called Volkswagen.

Brand

Fiat

Fiat is a car company from Italy that makes small and affordable cars.

Brand

Ford

Ford is a big car company from the United States that makes many types of vehicles like trucks and cars.

Brand

Audi

Audi is a car company from Germany that makes fancy cars with cool technology.

Brand

Renault

Renault is a car company from France that makes many different types of cars, including electric ones.

Brand

Honda

Honda is a company that makes cars, including small electric SUVs that run on electricity instead of gas.

Car

Jaguar Fpace

The Jaguar F-Pace is a fancy SUV that’s fun to drive and looks stylish. It’s not as common as some other SUVs, so you might not see many of them around.

Car

Subaru Outback

The Subaru Outback is a car that can drive on all kinds of roads, like dirt or snow, and is good for families or people who like adventures. People like to talk about what’s good and bad about it compared to similar cars.

LIVE

The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by Autotrader.

John, have you ever wondered why I, along with 14,000 other dealers, choose to partner with Autotrader?

Well actually, I didn't think so. I'll tell you anyway, with more than 84 million consumer visits every month,

it connects us with more engaged car buyers and delivers more deals than anyone else in the UK.

And now, with the launch of buying signals, we'll have brand new insights on every deal,

showing how likely a customer is to buy the car they're interested in.

Plus, as someone who set out to use AI and data as much as possible in my business,

I've found their technology, data and tools genuinely invaluable.

But when I do get stuck, which is, let's face it, most of the time,

Autotrader is always on hand and committed to supporting us to get the very best from our package.

To find out how they can help you, visit trade.autotrader.co.uk

Welcome back to the Cardiola podcast, where we pick our favourite stories of the week

and ask an industry guest to choose which were the best.

I'm John Ray and would you believe me, joining me is James Fackett.

James, nice to see you.

These introductions sound like I need a holiday, John.

You're getting ever more disappointed to see me every week, aren't you?

Is that showing through?

Yeah, it's all a bitch, yeah.

How are you, John? Lovely to see you.

I'm very well, yeah. Lovely to see you as well.

Yes, it's all, you know, I'm sure everyone's bored of us talking about it,

but it's all the run-up to our big event, isn't it, in less than two weeks' time.

Yeah.

It's what's stressing me out at the minute, I don't know about you.

Definitely is.

You've got the stress of, you know, exploding Nissan cash guys and various other things.

Exactly.

But also, yeah, right in the script for Cardiola Live coming up on March the 19th.

It's funny, isn't it?

The motor trade seems to operate in the same way every year.

They always buy the tickets at the very last minute.

So the last two weeks before the event, it goes absolutely crazy.

And, yeah, it's filling up very nicely.

So, yeah, we've added another headline speaker this week.

I did think, John, it was probably just worth touching on that,

because we had Ginny Buckley on the podcast last week from Electrofiners.

She was brilliant, wasn't she?

And off the back of that, we invited her to come along as a headline speaker.

But you did not once comment during that podcast about how I'd kept it together

about my comments on electric cars for the entire podcast.

Well, I thought you were quite restrained.

I didn't really notice at the time.

You know, your best behavior really, weren't you?

I really was, wasn't I?

Yeah, I really was.

But, yeah, she's going to be coming along to Cardio Live,

and we're going to be discussing exactly that.

So maybe I'll put my opinions forward at that point in time.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to her joining the headline lineup at Cardio Live.

Yeah, tickets are available, CardioLive.co.uk.

So, yeah, that has been dominating my week,

and it will do for the next couple of weeks.

The dealership has been very interesting this week, though.

John, do you want to hear what's been going on there?

Well, your employee has returned from his holiday.

He has.

I assume that helps.

That has certainly helped.

We've also bought back more cars than we've sold,

which is always a good thing, isn't it?

I mean, what a joy.

So, yeah, we bought back a white chimney

that we sold a couple of weeks back,

because I just think she didn't like it very much.

And she was very moaning,

sent us a very angry letter,

and I just thought it's probably best just to give her her money back.

So we did that.

And then we sold in Mercedes that we had in Partix Change,

sort of with the hope that we might not hear from them ever again.

But we sold it very, very cheap.

But we did hear from them again,

and we gave them his money back.

So that's off to the Scrap Man,

the big scrap heap in the sky.

Very sad.

Was that the lovely CLK that you thought would call

for another 100,000 miles?

It was.

Yeah, it was.

But the other thing I just wanted to talk about, John,

just quickly before we introduce our guest is

I did something that I didn't think I'd ever do this week,

and that was I signed up.

So I'd buy a car.

Sell a car, is it?

Sell a car.

Yeah, I mean, that would be nice.

Now, I signed up to a stocking loan provider.

Now, we've signed up with Next Gear,

and there'll be lots of people listening to this podcast

who are probably thinking, well, thinking a number of things.

I'll let them send me direct messages on LinkedIn

and WhatsApp with their actual real thoughts about it.

But the reason we've done it is they've partnered with Carwow.

Next week, we're going to be doing one of our

Battle of the Buyers videos,

which I'm very excited about,

where other people spend my money.

But actually, they're not going to be spending my money

for the first 60 to 90 days.

They'll actually be spending Next Gear's money.

So yeah, it'd be interesting to see how that actually works, John.

I mean, it's a big step.

It's like putting on my big boy trousers

and being a proper dealer.

So it'll be interesting to see how that works.

I don't know how much we'll use it going forward,

but it's a little bit nerve-wracking at the same time,

if I'm honest.

What I'm going to take from that, James,

is that you've realised this video is coming up,

and you've also realised you don't have enough money

in the company bank account to pay for any of the cars

that John likes.

I mean, you should be a KC,

because you've seen through me very, very, very well.

No, I'm going to introduce our guests,

because we're nearly halfway through now.

So we've got two guests this week.

This is a bit of a change for us.

So our first guest is managing director of Celtic,

Subaru and KGM, and Mitsubishi approved repair as well.

Tony, Shasha, Tony, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Nice to see you, Tony.

Thank you for joining us.

Lovely to see you.

And nice to have a fellow Subaru aficionado

on the podcast, obviously.

And we're also joined by a head of strategy and insights

at AutoTrader, Mark Palmer.

Mark, lovely to see you.

Lovely to see you too.

Thanks for having me back.

Nice to see you, Mark.

We'll come to you very shortly.

We'll be talking about the market, aren't we,

and what's been happening with the new plate change

which started this week.

So we'll come to you in 20 minutes or so.

Tony, let's have a chat first.

Thank you for joining us on the podcast.

Very, very welcome to you.

Thank you for joining us.

Tell those people listening a little bit about your business.

OK.

Yeah.

So we are a small multi-franchise car dealer in Swansea.

We were a Mitsubishi dealer for 25 years.

Of course, Mitsubishi then pulled out of the market in 2020, 2021.

So we had to reinvent ourselves as a business

because all our eggs were in that one basket at the time.

And we kind of reinvented ourselves

as an independent, franchised retailer,

focusing predominantly on used cars, growing that business.

And at the same time, then, Subaru came along and asked

if we would get into bed with them, which we did.

But Subaru is obviously quite niche,

but it kind of fitted with our database, our type of customer.

And we carried on like that for a number of years.

And it's worked really, really well.

But then, typically, everything happens at once.

Last year, we had three brands approach us,

asking if we were interested in talking to them,

one of which was KGN.

And KGN kind of seemed to have the same kind of philosophy as us.

They're quite easy to deal with.

They're very laid back.

They like to have fun with the brand, and they've got a great range.

So it just seemed to work for us to take that on.

And we've been doing that now for a year as well.

So five years on from Mitsubishi leaving,

now we've got three brands.

Mitsubishi are coming back in the summer as well.

So it's from feast the farming to feast again, perhaps.

But we are focusing a lot on our used car business.

That's the area that can make us money, will make us money.

New car market is so volatile.

It's so challenging with all the Chinese entrants as well.

So we stick into what we know works for us.

But the brands are a welcome addition as well,

because it really does help our after sales business,

in terms of vehicle retention and servicing and all the rest of it.

So yeah, so that's a little old us really,

the wrong end of the M4 in Swansea.

But we do punch above our weight, I think, and we're okay.

Yeah, as a small business, we're doing okay.

Tony, tell me a little bit then about your thoughts about Mitsubishi coming back then.

I mean, we've talked about it on the podcast a few times.

I'm a brand that's got a very loyal following.

Whenever we have one in stock, I was saying last week on the podcast,

it always flies out the door and they seem to still be very popular.

What are your thoughts on it?

And are you signing up with them again?

Yes.

So they haven't officially announced anything just yet.

But yeah, we are going to be signing up with them.

It's actually quite refreshing what they're doing.

They've taken a very pragmatic approach,

because they ease and they weigh back into the market.

They're not coming in, all guns blazing.

They said they're going to come in with two models,

which is the Altuogra Pickup, the latest series 7 generation,

and the Outlander PHEV, which was very, very popular

when it originally launched back in 2014.

And they're going to ease into the market

and they're going to see how it feels and how it develops

and then grow from there again.

So we're hopeful that it will grow

and they'll start introducing the other models.

I think they are, from what I can gather,

reluctant to introduce the rebadged French rental cars.

They just want to solely focus on the Japanese built Mitsubishi.

So we'll see what happens.

But for me, it's great because we've got a quite a large,

loyal Mitsubishi database.

They're reaching to have Mitsubishi again.

It's going to help my park.

It's going to help my after sales.

It won't be easy because the pickup market

is finding it tough right now

and 50% of their product is pickup.

So it's going to be an easy ride,

but we're hopeful that it will do well.

It's many of the original people behind the scenes are still there

and they're all good people, we know.

And I'm quite convinced that they'll do a good job.

So fingers crossed.

Were you quite shocked when they announced that they were coming back?

No, no, I wasn't.

We knew it was always on the cards.

It was a horrendous blender.

I don't know who made the decision to follow Europe,

but we knew it was always going to come back.

What we didn't know is how long it was going to take

and the longer it took the harder, obviously it was going to be.

But Mitsubishi and now the official importer in the UK is IN Group,

who obviously still also look after Subaru.

So we have a relationship with them already.

I know they've been talking to Mitsubishi for some time

because they've been keen to get it back in.

The after sales business has remained particularly strong really

because I thought that would last a year or two

and then fall off a cliff, but it hasn't.

So customers are holding on to their Mitsubishi's.

They want to keep them and we still sell a lot of use Mitsubishi's.

So, you know, so it's worked well.

So yeah, so for me, it hasn't been a surprise it's coming back.

The surprise was how long it took actually.

So I was hoping it would have been back within two years at the most.

Yeah, certainly.

I was sort of surprised when it came back.

I actually thought it would have been gone for good,

but clearly you were a lot closer to the brand than I was.

There was a lot of choice though, isn't there now among in the car park out there.

There are a huge number of brands coming in every day.

How do you think Mitsubishi is going to stack up against,

especially these new Chinese rivals?

Yeah, well, it will affect all brands.

You know, the cake isn't getting any bigger really.

And there are a lot more entrants going to a slice of it.

So I suppose from my point of view, with all my brands, Mitsubishi,

Subaru and KGM, we are going to be less affected than the mainstream brands

because we are niche.

So there's less of a chunk to take out of those brands than there are if you are more volume,

shall we say.

So I'd be more worried if I was MG or Kia or Hyundai, one of those brands.

But yeah, it is a challenge because it's just such a noisy market

and to get your voice heard, you need to be clever,

you need to be creative with your marketing and you need to have big budgets

and we'll wait to see what kind of budget Mitsubishi will have.

But I think we'll be okay because there's enough of a database out there that we can call on.

It's always nice to have a fellow dealer on the podcast because it's nice to bounce

just about how the start of the year has been.

You know, is it just me that's been feeling it's okay?

I mean, how's it been for you?

I mean, to be honest, it feels pretty positive at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, it's really important to get off to a good start, I feel.

It's like, you know, using a football analogy.

You want to win your first three games of the season, don't you?

And so January is always a really big month for us and, you know, we were okay.

We had a good January, which set us up and February was pretty good as well.

So we're quite happy with our start, but it's never easy.

It's just every month is a challenge.

I mean, I've been saying it all my life, you know, four decades in now.

I've never known an easy period within the trade myself.

So it's always a challenge.

But all we can do is take one month at a time, hopefully have a good month.

If it's bad, put it behind us, move on, try and make it better the following month.

And what about used cars? How are they going for you?

Used cars is predominantly what's keeping me going at the moment.

That's been pretty good.

New cars, we've been doing okay, but we've not been set in any records.

That's for sure. It is difficult.

But used cars is what's paying our wages and paying the bills.

You know, that's been pretty good.

And after sales has been quite busy as well, which is encouraging.

There's a lot of competition out there for that, too.

Yeah, certainly, yes.

And you're involved in the IMDA, aren't you, as well?

So that's a little bit about that.

Yeah, so they approached me a couple of years ago to see if I was interested to help out.

I don't think they had any representation in Wales.

So they probably asked a lot of people who weren't able to do it, so they ended up asking me.

And yeah, it's been really good.

It's been quite insightful because I've got to know a lot of new people,

some really interesting characters, some really knowledgeable people out there

who are predominantly from the independent world,

which I've never really got to know that well.

Most of my contacts are in franchise dealer network, shall we say.

So I've gotten to know a lot of new people.

I've learned so much from them as well.

And the IMDA, I mean, it's a fantastic organisation.

I just don't know why absolutely everybody hasn't signed up to it because it's free.

So it costs nothing and there are a lot of benefits, you know.

And the more members are within the IMDA, then the bigger the voice

and the more influential hopefully the IMDA can be.

Am I right in thinking you're on the committee?

Yes, yes.

So when you're in those committee meetings, I mean, what's on the IMDA's mind at the moment?

What's bothering the independent most?

So I said, oh gosh, well, the one over the last few months,

the big one has been the auto trader changes.

Of course, there's been a lot of noise about that.

And the IMDA, you know, we've tried to engage.

So we're trying to represent our members and engage with the trader and express, you know, the views of our members.

But in a constructive way, you know, it's no good being shouty and throwing toys out.

You've got to talk to these people and put your points of view across and engage

and hopefully then come to some solutions that everybody's comfortable with.

And that's what we've been trying to do behind the scenes constantly.

And what's your take on it, Tony? What's your take on the auto trader?

Sorry, Mark.

Well, so my view is that auto trader is the best tool on the market for what it does.

You know, I don't think there's any doubt about that.

My concern is I think there's a little bit of a disconnect between auto trader and its customers.

And when I say its customers, I mean us, the dealers.

You know, we are the ones who advertise predominantly.

And I would like to see auto trader engage far more with its customers and have a flexible approach.

You know, pricing is a huge issue.

And auto trader will say, well, yeah, you know, we build value into our pricing by adding all these additional products, which is great.

But they should be optional as opposed to mandatory.

And you know, when we sell a car, you know, we sell a car and then we sell add-ons, don't we?

Whatever it is, paint protection, service plan, whatever.

I think auto trader would be better served having a similar model where they sell you a package where we all subscribe to and be happy with.

And then if any of us want to use additional tools and services, then we can subscribe to that and pay a bit more because not everybody wants it.

So I think, you know, that's my view on it.

There isn't a great viable alternative for me out there.

But there may be in the future.

And I think auto trader would be best served by thinking about that, you know, for the future.

But as a product, you know, it is excellent, you know, and it helps us sell cars.

And I think, you know, a lot of people who are searching on the Internet will at some point look at auto trader, you know, and that's because they get at what they do.

So, you know, that's my personal view.

Tony, where do the majority of your leads come from for your business?

We do. I don't know if there's a full majority with anybody.

So we get quite a spread. Auto trader is quite a lot.

Our own website now is building up nicely and social media.

We're very, very active on social media.

We try and be different.

We try and inject a bit of humor.

We don't want to always just, you know, advertise a car and that's it.

We try and just, you know, take different angles.

So social media quite a lot, auto trader quite a lot, our own website quite a lot, but also word of mouth.

We've got a pretty good reputation I would like to think in our area.

We've got a lot of repeat business and that helps as well.

Mark, I'll let you come back on Tony's points in a moment when I come to you.

I don't want to think I'm not going to give you the right reply on those, but we'll do that when we have a chat in a moment.

But Tony, I just wanted to ask about sourcing.

I mean, that is a big challenge at the moment, isn't it?

I mean, getting hold of good quality stocks is very, very difficult.

You're focusing on news cars as well. How do you do it?

It's a real problem.

So when we were a Mitsubishi dealer up until 2020, 80% of my new stock were part exchanges.

I was only under sourceable 20%.

It's flipped the other way now.

80% of my stock I have to go and find and buy.

So it is a huge challenge.

Luckily, I've got a fantastic business partner.

My sales director is a great buyer and he spends a lot of time and so we do buy quite well.

But it is a difficulty for everybody.

I mean, prices are through the roof and how some people pay what they pay and actually make a margin.

I don't know, but they obviously do.

And we have to follow suit.

You know, we know what sells for us and we tend to buy the cars that suit our demographic and our profile.

We're not mainstream.

So we don't go buying all the same old volume cars.

We try and buy things that are a little bit different.

So that's why AutoTrader works for us as well.

Because of course, people from outside our area will see a particular car that they want,

and they will travel to Swansea to buy it.

So, you know, that's why for me personally, AutoTrader does work.

Tony, how did you get into this business?

Luck, chance.

I finished school.

I was reasonably academic in school, but I was bored of it.

I needed to get out of the classroom.

So my view was to go to college and learn some sort of trade or skill.

And during the summer holiday, when I needed to earn some money, I joined a YTS scheme.

So back in the day, for people who perhaps are young enough not to know this,

I joined a YTS scheme, which was a training scheme.

It was like an apprenticeship on a cheap £25 per week.

And I went into a commercial vehicle dealership into the parts department as a stores boy.

And I didn't leave, basically.

They were very good to me.

They started paying me a little extra because I worked hard.

I had a good work ethic.

I turned up every morning.

And I just followed the career as it took me.

And I ended up from parts going into a service after sales, became a director.

And then the business I'm in now was a family-owned business.

I became a director of that business.

The owner wanted to sell up.

The MD came to me and said, why didn't we take it on?

So we took on the Mitsubishi franchise, took on the business.

That was in 2010 in the middle of the financial crisis.

And we said to ourselves, if we can make money this year, we'll make money every year.

And we did.

We made a profit in our first year.

And we carried on from there.

A couple of years later, my partner said, take on the MD role.

It needs a new, fresh approach.

And that was my full, proper introduction into car sales.

So all my career up until that point had been after sales.

So even though I was involved because I was a director, I never really sold cars.

I had an idea, but I didn't know the nitty-gritty of the business.

So it was quite a steep learning curve.

I had him to hold my hand for a couple of years.

And that's what we did.

And we grew.

We were able to grow just because I think I took a different approach.

I was able to look at it from a completely fresh perspective.

And in 2021, I bought the business basically outright.

And we continued from there as we were restructuring.

It just made sense for me to do it all myself.

What do you enjoy the most about working in the motor trade?

Obviously, when you sell a car, it's a buzz.

Always, always.

I mean, you know, we're out of size now where there's about 20 of us working here,

where I got a team in sales, you know, every time they sell a car.

We don't have a bell to ring or anything like that.

But, you know, it's great when they tell me they know that, you know, it turns me on, you know.

But I like the market inside.

That's kind of the area I've gone into a little bit now because it takes so much time.

And it's a kind of thing you can do 24-7, you know.

So, you know, I'll be sat at home with my wife's watching Coronation Suite or whatever she's doing.

And I'm on the phone and, you know, putting together a little video and advert or whatever.

So I enjoy the market inside.

And yeah, that's kind of where I'm at, you know, half the time now.

And Tony, just to finish, where do you think the biggest opportunities are for dealers this year?

Oh, gosh.

I don't know. That's a great question.

I don't know if it's a big opportunity.

I think it's always about, you know, doing the basics.

Right, you know, you've got the saucy stock.

You've got to have a little bit of a crystal ball and take some chances sometimes

because you don't know what the market's going to do next week or the week after.

And you've got to control your costs, you know.

That's the key to it.

If you've got, if you run a tight ship, you can ride the storms, you know,

when we have those quiet weeks or quiet months, you know, it won't hurt you so much.

If you run a tight ship, if you spend in here, there and everywhere,

then you start feeling it then during the quiet months.

So for me, I don't know if it's a specific opportunity.

I think it's always about just doing the basics properly.

Yeah, Sage of Vice Tony, thank you very much.

Nice to see you.

Thank you for joining us and sticking around for the stories.

But Mark, you've been sitting there silently in the background.

I could see you wanted to jump in a couple of times.

I mean, firstly, just, just to Tony's point there, you know, about auto trader listening.

I mean, not that I want this to be an ambush in any way, shape or form,

but I should be giving you a right to reply.

What would you like to say to Tony?

Yeah, those are fair points and we've, you've had numerous people,

numerous guests on from auto trader.

I'm sure Tony, you've spoken to people from auto trader as well

and your colleagues on the IMDA will have also done the same thing.

So, so I don't want to retread the kind of things that, you know,

we've spoken about and we've been through and so on and so forth.

Just as the kind of a point on that, you know, the main thing you talked about,

the main thing that, you know, one of the things you talked about,

Tony there was listening and being closer and not being disconnected from customers.

And we've worked hard, definitely over the last couple of months

to establish customer advisory groups, which is a forum for retailers,

all types to meet with people from auto trader and just talk about what,

you know, what they want to talk about.

You know, we don't set the agenda for those.

There are things that we want to share ideas that we want to put in front of customers

and ask them, do you think about this or do you think this would work and so on and so forth.

That's about as far as the agenda goes from our perspective.

The main thing of those really is to sort of sit and listen and find out what's going on

and what retailers are feeling.

So, but there are lots of other bits and pieces we could talk about.

If it was one of those kind of discussions, absolutely, but I can, you know,

completely take the point, Tony, absolutely valid points that you've made.

And, you know, we are working hard to try to do that.

And that probably is one other thing I'll add.

It's all very well kind of sitting and listening and all that kind of stuff,

but doing something is probably that's what you really want to see, isn't it?

And there have been changes made to the platform, to product pages,

and there'll be more things coming which will kind of, you know,

hopefully help retailers get to where they want to be and, you know,

and help us move forward.

So, yeah, really well established.

And you can find out who the members of those committees and things are.

You just Google it.

But anyway, so, you know, really well established now.

And I think the next one might be next week, customer advisory groups.

And then there are things happening where retailers come into the room and say,

you know, we're not happy about this.

We'd like to see that thing change.

We don't know that that's necessarily working.

The product teams have gone away and looked at it and there have been changes made.

So it's early days, absolutely.

But, you know, hopefully we're moving forward in the right kind of way.

Mark, appreciate that.

I'll let you off the hook.

Let's talk about the market.

We're obviously in the March plate change, aren't we now?

There's been some, from what we're seeing, it's very positive.

I mean, is that just me getting the feeling or is that actually what's happening?

I think it is.

It depends, doesn't it?

I mean, Tony's made the right, you know, all the right point.

I'm risking repeating stuff that Tony said.

It depends what brands you've got, doesn't it?

To a degree.

I mean, at the top level at the end of February, I mean, February is a funny old month in that, you know,

we've had a reason.

March is quite chunky.

I'm sorry.

March is massive.

January is quite chunky.

February sort of sits in the middle, doesn't it?

But the year to date picture, markets up 5%.

Retail is actually ahead, which is sort of, you know, the first time that's happened for a bit.

So it points to a solid market in March.

I'd imagine there'll be people sitting there waiting for the phone to start ringing from,

you know, their brand sales director.

A couple of weeks.

Where are we?

It's the 6th of March.

I'd probably give it another week or two.

It depends on what the order take is looking like.

So, but yeah, you'd be up to quite optimistic, I think, in terms of volume.

That's quite positive.

A couple of interesting things, maybe to point out, it was where we are at this point of the year.

The Chinese brands in the months of Jan and Feb combined have got a share

of 13.5%, which is double what it was last year.

So then there's this swell of stuff going on.

Interested to see how they do in March and what the response is being

or what the response is from the other brands.

So there's a thing there.

Electric cars is always the other story in the new car market, isn't it?

Year to date, that share sits at 22%, volumes up just over a percent.

So there's quite a way to go before we get to that target.

So those are always the two themes that were asked about on you.

Good news for you, Tony.

Plug-in hybrid volume is up.

Nearly 50% year on year.

So they count towards the Zev targets, of course.

So you can see that there's been a bit of a switch around in what goes into the market.

So it feels like Mitsubishi might be coming in with a good product

and outlander at the right time because that will carry on through to this year.

So yeah, Q1 seems to be shaping up pretty well.

It depends on the brand mix, but it seems to be, new car seems to be.

You know, there are reasons to be fairly optimistic,

depending on the brand, of course, and where you are.

Yeah, I think we'll probably come on to some of those new car figures in our stories

because obviously we've had February's numbers this week.

They were absolutely fascinating.

I've looked at them in detail, and especially those Chinese brands you mentioned.

I mean, they're really going great guns.

What about used though, Mark?

I mean, you've mentioned in a recent chat with Batch, didn't you,

that there's this sort of looming supply of shortage of stock in some areas of use cover.

Tony and I have touched on it, and probably both of us have certainly felt it

when we're trying to buy stock.

What's the reality?

It's just as you described.

It's just a fact that when fewer new cars are registered some time ago,

then a few years later there are fewer used cars of those ages, aren't there?

And we said it'd be sort of five, six and seven year old cars this year.

It's their turn as that gap moves through the park,

and we're already seeing that supply is there.

There is down.

I think the thing is that we're already starting to see their retailers are really adaptable.

I was in a room last week with a number of NFDA members actually,

and the host of the meeting kind of went around the room and said,

what's the thing that's facing you?

And they all talked about supply and the fear of buying the wrong cars

and having the right cars, which is the kind of thing I think that Tony was referring to.

So that is definitely bearing out in the market.

We're seeing it in the data.

There's lower supply of those sorts of cars.

The younger end of the market, supply is coming back, so there's a bit more choice there.

The thing is it's really different to what it used to be.

Brands are different, fuel types are different, so there's a bit of an opportunity there.

And then at the other end, this is where the strength is, cars aged 10 plus are going really, really well.

Prices are up year on year, 11%.

The average price of a car is over £7,000.

This time last year, it was only £6,300.

So there's a great opportunity in older cars.

And you see in retailers, sort of pick up those and diverse ways.

Interesting yesterday, I don't know if you saw it, Virtube,

I've introduced a plan to sell 7 to 14 year old cars.

I was fascinated by that.

I mean, that is a big change, isn't it?

Huge change, yeah.

But for some time, that's going to be where the supply is.

So it kind of makes sense.

And I guess the challenge there is, how do you make sure you get the right ones to kind of work through prep costs

and have you got the right market and that sort of thing.

And actually, you know, just to come back to the auto trade a bit,

hopefully, tools like ours, the ones that retailers have got access to,

can help them make those kinds of decisions.

What's the right car for my market at the moment,

especially if it's in an aged cohort or a fuel type that you might not have sold before.

So there is definitely opportunity, I would say.

You've just got to really, more than ever, really, I suppose,

we say it's quite a lot, you'd expect me to say it,

really just pay attention to getting the right cars in

and, you know, the insights are there to help do that.

And then what about used electric?

I mean, we talked about this at length on the podcast last week with Ginny.

I mean, it's something that's quite close to my heart, actually,

because we've been trying quite a few ourselves.

I mean, we've got three of them in stock at the moment.

They always sell pretty quickly for us when they're...

Close to your heart, James.

Well, it is when I come to sell them, John.

I mean, I'm not going to say I like them.

I like the fact that they sell quickly.

Yeah, so we've got a couple of Nissan Leafs in stock at the moment.

We've got an e-Golf.

They always seem to be popular.

But there's a lot of dealers out there who just won't touch them.

I mean, why do you think that is?

Probably not as you.

It's interesting when you say that they sell really quickly,

but you don't like them.

That's the fear of getting it wrong, I think.

So I mentioned I was in a room with some NFDA members last week.

The day before that, I was actually in a room with some members of the IMDA

on a different conversation.

And we were talking, the purpose of that meeting

was a separate host organizer.

And they were talking about used electric cars,

independent retailers talking about used electric cars.

And what they were saying was they told them

and they'd had varying levels of success,

or they had or hadn't been able to make profit on those cars.

And they said the same kind of thing.

They know that the supply is going to be an increasing part of what's available.

Electric is going to be an increasing part of what they can buy in

over the next now and the future years.

And we are seeing an increase in independent retailers

stocking that we're now about 21% of retailers on our platform

that were sold on, which is up from where it was at this time last year.

Quite a lot.

So more and more retailers are starting to do it.

And we've talked, those cars do move quickly.

Pricing is pretty stable.

So when I say quickly, they're selling in 26, 27 days,

which is faster on average than the market, which is about 30 days.

So pricing is trending the right way.

There's value in the market, but it is very much about,

you know, which cars are going to sell and do what you need them to do.

I think what came out of listening to the retailers last week,

the independent retailers, was thinking about what is going to happen

with the cost of that car, buying the right one in.

Is it one of those ones that is going to move in 26 days,

or is it going to take 60 because if it's 60, obviously,

then I've got a bit of a challenge.

So thinking about the tools available is really important there.

The other thing, which is really key, and this is probably where you might come in,

is prep costs are potentially different.

Where can I get the prep done?

Are there specialists near me?

Especially if you're in a more of a remote area,

there might not be specialist retailers that can handle software updates

or to make changes that you need to be made to the car

to get the car prepped properly.

So retailers are not sure what to do about that.

They've always got a partner for a petrol or a diesel car

that can get the car right for them.

But if they don't have the tools on site, how do I do that?

That's the thing.

Is that something that you've...

Absolutely hit the nail on the head, Mark,

because we've got, just as an example,

we've got an e-golf that we had to buy back

a car that had a problem with the charger.

I've been running it for the last three weeks at home to test it.

A charge is absolutely fine at home.

As soon as you plug it into a fast charger, it won't work.

The problem I have is nobody we use for our prayer by mechanics.

They don't really know how to fix it.

It's one of those things that is a specialist problem.

And at that point in time,

a specialist problem means very expensive bills.

So this is the issue with the petrol and diesel.

You can solve most problems with electric,

something like that.

It does get difficult.

Yeah, that is absolutely something that came through last week.

And you know what, where are those specialists?

Some people have got those specialists.

Some people don't.

And we're in a really early period, aren't we?

I don't want to get too...

But people need to get their arms around it.

It's a good opportunity for the IMDA, for example.

Where are these specialists?

It's almost like checker trade or something like that, isn't it?

Yes.

Who can help us at the moment to help retailers?

Because at the moment,

all we've said to retailers about used electric,

we go on about it quite a lot,

because we just think retailers are useful to have a plan,

given that that's going to be what supplies...

Your plan might be to never sell an electric car,

because you're going to sell the business in five years.

That's absolutely fine.

Your plan might be,

no, I want to make a big thing out of this.

How do I do it?

And that's all the kind of advice we've ever had,

is the cars are coming,

have a plan and here are the facts that we can help you with.

So that was the thing anyway.

And I think there are some things missing in there.

There's information about batteries and degradation

and all that sort of stuff.

I think there's never been any bad news about battery degradation.

The more and more information that comes out

says that you can trust the battery.

So we...

And that again,

more of that news needs to come out to independent retailers.

But for sure, I mean, from the taking...

I don't what I don't want to do is put a lot of problems in the way.

Lots of retailers are having quite a bit of success with the cars.

I'm moving quite quickly.

Pricing is stable.

There's value in the market.

It's just those extra questions.

How do I prep it?

Can I be absolutely sure?

And is this the right car for the local market?

I think those are the things probably that retailers

want to be getting past if they can,

to start to understand that, yeah,

it's a good viable proposition for them.

Mark, just in a nutshell in the last minute that we've got,

gives an idea of what the rest of 2026 is going to look like

from your opinion.

Completely with Tony there.

He said he talked about getting the basics right.

That's absolutely, I think, where we are.

There is supply in the market.

There is good demand in the market.

Choosing the right cars.

We heard some franchise retailers saying,

you know, I'm worried about buying the wrong cars.

So choosing the right cars and maximising the margin in them

sounds like such a basic thing, but that is the market.

That's the market, I think, that we're in, isn't it?

And it's good to hear Tony say the same thing.

You know, we haven't got a 2020-2022 scenario.

The volatility's gone.

Things have settled down.

So it feels like a real opportunity to go right.

What do we need to do to make sure that we max out the margin

in every car?

Mark, very much appreciate you coming on.

Thank you for joining us also.

But John, we should probably, at 40 minutes in, do some stories.

We'll be right back.

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Now, back to the podcast.

So, James and I are going to run through our favourite stories of the week.

And at the end, Tony and Mark get to decide which one of us chose the best ones

and who's the winner. Hopefully we don't have a draw.

Otherwise, this can be very awkward.

I won last week.

You did 4-3, John, on the scoreboard, to you.

Yeah, I only say that because that means I get to start now.

And I'm going to get the stories that we're terrified

of talking about James out the way first.

Are you? Well done.

I am, which is, of course, all that's going on with Peter Waddell

and his court case in the High Court against Bluebell Cars,

which is the owner, fundamentally, of Big Motoring World.

So, just a little preface here.

Because this is an ongoing court case, it's now day 15 of this court case, I believe,

we are not allowed to comment really about what's going on here,

but we can say what's been said in court, et cetera.

We can't really reveal the information that's not been said in court.

It's all very complicated.

So, the way that we go through this is going to be a little bit surface level.

Is it not, James?

Would that be a way of describing how we can talk about this?

I'm looking forward to you doing surface level. Go ahead.

Thank you.

Whereas I would like to, obviously, insert my opinion into some of what's been going on here,

but I'm not going to do that.

So, just bear that in mind as you listen to this.

So, obviously, it's all been going on in the High Court over the last 15 days, as I say.

We've had a reporter in the High Court reporting on this,

but of course, typically, we've had them in on a Friday,

and we record this podcast at 9 o'clock in the morning on a Friday.

So, we've missed out on a week's worth of news, basically.

But there's been some revelations coming out of court case.

I mean, it's been, firstly, I would say it's been interesting to read,

to get an insight as to the culture that existed at Big Motoring World under Peter Waddell's leadership.

So, there's one particular story we ran last week, which no doubt people will have seen

about some of the, as Peter Waddell calls them, nicknames that he would give to his staff.

And I think people can make their own minds up about those.

I'm just going to leave that out there.

That's one particular thing. I don't want to go into that too much because, you know,

in the title of that story is an offensive slur, I would say, which I don't really want to repeat.

So, that story is on the website if you want to read a bit more about that.

The other thing is there was revelations about how Peter Waddell wanted Big Motoring World's,

well, what his succession plan would look like, worry to retire or step back from the company a little bit.

And evidently, he wanted Dash Gupta to take over his role as CEO.

Now, I should say that doesn't necessarily mean that Dash Gupta was actually going to do that.

It's just that Peter Waddell wanted Dash Gupta to take on that role,

much in the same way that if James retired from this podcast, perhaps he might like,

I don't know, Emily Maitlis to take over his job.

Doesn't mean Emily Maitlis would come in and host the Cardiola podcast for us, but you never know.

So, I thought that was quite interesting.

Of course, they went with Lawrence Fallen in the end, not Dash Gupta.

Dash Gupta actually sent us a comment, which he did have conversations about the role,

but he chose to pursue the role that he currently has with Hughes Gray and Blackstone.

And then, James, you've also touched on, just to hand it over to you,

you've touched on a few more things in your sub-stack, which I'll be honest, I haven't read.

Thanks, John, because I was up at 5am writing this.

That's really good of you, but no, I did guess.

Yeah, very interesting day in court yesterday, which we've had reports of.

So, I've published that in my sub-stack today, which I will reveal a little bit of what happened here.

So, it was Reza Fardad.

He is the partner in the private equity firm Freshstream.

He appeared in the witness stand yesterday, gave his testimony to the High Court.

And in that, he revealed that they weren't the only bidder for big motoring world, which I thought was very interesting.

In 2021, French private equity firm Ticky Howe.

I don't know whether I've got that right, John.

Funnily enough, in the transcripts, James, there's a question as to how it's pronounced.

In the transcript, it just reads the same, so you can't...

There's no way of knowing how it's pronounced.

I would have called them TC Capital for the purposes of this podcast.

They were named in the High Court as having sniffled around big in 2021.

They did do due diligence, but those talks came to nothing.

And that came up in the High Court because Freshstream paid for some of that due diligence they did on the business.

£240,000, no less, to sort of accelerate their own investigations into big.

They also explained how much they paid for the 35% share they bought in big in April 2022.

They paid Peter Wardell £72 million for that 35% share.

And they said that was very unusual for a private equity firm, their private equity firm.

They told the High Court that normally they go for a majority slice of a business, so they have control.

Obviously, in this deal, they didn't, but they had structured this deal in a way that allowed them to acquire a majority share at a later date.

So the court heard how the deal had been structured to include what they called significant downside protections,

which was designed to cover them if the business underperformed.

So Freshstream had step-in rights, which meant it could take greater control of that business if it fell below certain financial targets.

This was interesting that this came up in the court, so we hadn't heard much of this before and it detailed exactly how they structured the deal and put it together.

It also said that Freshstream told the court that they aimed for a 1.45, very specific times return on their investment,

and that's what they were aiming for with this big deal.

Peter Wardell had pushed for a £200 million valuation for big during those negotiations.

He'd based this on the fact that the business could generate, in his opinion, £20 million EBITDA profit.

This came up in the court and he wanted to have a 10 times valuation for the sale,

and that's how they got to this £72 million valuation for 35%.

The other interesting bits that came up in this cross-examination yesterday were the fact that Freshstream carried out some corporate intelligence into Peter Wardell.

They looked into him as a person ahead of doing the deal.

They used a firm called Kroll.

They're a corporate intelligence business hired by private equity like this to investigate their people and their businesses,

sort of giving them confidence in that investment, but they didn't find anything.

They reported back that there was no references to an internal culture of tolerant or discriminatory behaviour of a racial or sexual harassment nature.

But then they also looked at the Glassdoor website, which is where former employees can talk about their businesses,

where it was alleged that Peter Wardell had been rude, disrespectful to staff,

one that even likened the workplace to being on the set of Wolf of Wall Street, but with cars.

So a lot of stuff came out yesterday.

The full details of what came out yesterday is in my sub-stack, John.

People can find that on the website, follow the links.

But I must say, the trials continuing at the High Court, Jack is there again today,

and we'll be reporting back on it later today, so there'll be more stories.

I'm sure, by the time this podcast comes out on the Cardiola website.

But yeah, I mean, there is so much coming out of this court case.

It's fascinating to follow, and I know the industry is following it very carefully as well.

I don't think we should ask our guest their opinion on this one.

No.

I think we'll let you off.

I'll move us on, shall I?

Shall I move us on?

So I would just like to talk a little bit about the sales figures that came out from the SMMT this week.

So we've heard that the February sales figures were the best.

It was the best February in 22 years, which I was very surprised about.

But I always like to look at the detail, and it's those manufacturers that are doing incredibly well.

I mean, Mark mentioned it when he was talking about the start of this year on May's 13.5% market share for those Chinese brands is incredible.

JQ last month was up 179%.

Amoda up 147%.

A year on year, James?

Yeah, a year on year.

And I mean, JQ had launched at this time last year, and Amoda had been around a little while.

So I think they were three or four months into their time in the UK.

Cherry was very interested in new arrival.

They managed 1,406 sales, which was actually more than Amoda in February.

They took a 1.5 market share last month, which is very impressive, isn't it?

But it also, when you look at the winners, you also have to look at the losers, don't you?

And Honda, I mean, what is going on there?

I mean, they are in big trouble, I think.

I mean, they dropped nearly 40% in February.

They moved to an agency sales model, John, in December.

It was when I missed off my sub-stack last week.

And off the back of that, they don't seem to be having the best of times.

They sold 874 cars in February, which is not too bad.

But when you divvy that up between the 100 dealers they've got, that's less than nine cars a dealership.

I'm telling you, they're having a worse time, though, James.

Go on.

DS.

Oh, go on.

How was the DS?

Five cars.

What? Five cars in the entire month?

Five cars in February, according to this.

Year-to-date.

Year-to-date, the much more healthy 24.

Are you serious?

That is unbelievable.

Yeah, so there are some other shockers in there.

DS won.

I don't know how I missed that one, but yeah, that is very, very disappointing.

Tesla down 37%.

Seat down 32%.

Nissan down 32%.

Jeep down 32%.

And Mini down 23%.

So those winners are certainly causing some problems for some of those losers.

But yeah, fascinated by those.

What did you think, Tony?

I mean, you're looking at these numbers.

You're in the new car game.

And what do you make of it?

It's, as I said earlier, that's exactly what I was expecting to see.

Because the Chinese entrants are coming in very enthusiastically into the market.

And they're going to have to take some market share from someone.

And they're going to be targeting the big boys, aren't they?

And I think Fiat was another manufacturer, which, you know,

I'm not having a good time at the moment.

So they're going to be going for those brands.

Tesla's no surprise.

Obviously, they've had a lot of bad price, haven't they?

Over the last 12 months and a lot.

And again, the Chinese brands are eating into their market share.

Yeah, I mean, I'd rather represent a niche brand right now

than a volume brand that's been doing very well for the last few years.

Because I think they're the ones who are going to look over their shoulder more than us.

So yeah, but when's it around?

Because there's more Chinese brands coming as well.

They can't all come in here.

It won't be worth their while.

You can tell I didn't have a coffee when I wrote my story this morning

because I also missed that about Fiat.

But yeah, down 69% with just 188 sales last month.

I mean, that is...

I mean, I will say you have to add a bath onto that as well, which is...

Are you?

Yeah, I mean, they're the same thing.

26.

26, John, yeah.

Wow.

About 200, isn't it?

What I was just going to say, I was just going to go to Mark,

but I was just going to say the other interesting thing is,

not all Chinese brands are doing well.

So, Cherrier, Moda J, Kool, big success.

GWM, which just has the aura, the funky cat or whatever it's called at this point.

Seven cars in February, which is Skywell at the bottom of the chart,

how I've organised it here.

Four cars, but to be fair, they haven't been here very long.

What was the other one I just saw?

BYD doing well, obviously.

But it's OX paying 22 cars.

So, not all of them are except, you know, XPENX 22 versus Cherries 1000 and whatever it was.

I mean, that GWM one is a war, isn't it?

Seven cars, they sold only six more than Jaguar, and they don't even exist.

I mean, it's...

I mean, that is painful, isn't it?

Mark, what's your take on all this?

Yeah, so the big story is the...

One of the big stories is the Chinese.

I think there is a response from some of the other manufacturers, isn't there?

So, you've called out some of the sort of real...

The established ones, the incumbents that have really struggled.

On the flip side, good months for...

Well, I think about Jan and Feb together.

Feb is a bit...

Because it's a bit wobbly, it can get really spiky.

You know, you can get weird numbers.

But Ford is up by a good chunk.

Mercedes-Benz, really good progress year on year.

Audi going pretty well year on year.

Renault going really well year on year.

So, I think there are some really good news stories in there.

Tony's made a great point.

I was thinking about it when you were talking earlier on, Tony,

about the bits of the market where brands are going to succeed.

I think that's a smart move by Mitsubishi.

You've got two good products that they know will live

and do really well in the segments that they're in.

If you've not got sort of standout products in certain parts of the market,

then that's where the competition is really difficult, isn't it?

Renault is doing pretty well because he's got really good...

A couple of really good electric cars.

Lots of people want that.

A really well priced, well specced, good cars.

So, Renault is going to do pretty well.

Mercedes-Benz has sort of found its niche a bit more similar for Audi.

Ford is up in its game a bit.

So, I think some of those brands are going to, you know, they'll find their place.

They might not do the volumes that they would have done historically,

but they're going to find their place.

But I think if you are a brand that hasn't quite got a standout car,

then it's going to be hard.

One thing I'd say in Honda's defence, by the way,

these are the sales figures.

Go on to AutoTrader and have a look at the Honda ENY1.

There are some incredible brand new car offers on the platform.

So, of all the electric cars listed, new cars on the platform,

just this last stat for you,

Honda's 0.4 of them are the ENY1 in February.

That car, there's about 20 cars, 25 cars,

took 4.4% of the leads.

So, we haven't seen them in the sales yet,

but we're going to see those in March.

10 times the conversion on about 20, 25 cars,

because the offers are bananas.

So, haven't seen it in Feb, didn't really see it in Jan,

but I would expect Honda to have a much better performance in March.

And I think that's a little bit...

The year might be a little bit like that for some brands.

I won't comment on why I think that is.

Jon, do you want to wedge a story in?

I think we should try and wedge a couple more in, if we can.

I'll try and wedge one more in, but of course,

if you are listening and you're looking for a B-segment electric SUV,

you know where to go now, which is to auto-trader to the Honda section.

Lovely. I'm going to try and...

I feel I should talk about the FCA and the car finance redress scheme very briefly.

I couldn't really get my head around half of this, to be honest,

but the fundamental thing is some news from the FCA.

They're going to outline their final terms of the motor finance redress scheme,

possibly by the end of this month.

That's if they're doing a redress scheme because they're not quite sure.

And they've outlined lots of details on how it's all going to work.

If they do it, if they do it, that was basically the crux of this story.

It looks like there's going to be this implementation period,

which I... Oh, my God.

I can't... Basically, if you've already submitted all your details to say,

I would like some redress for my car finance,

there's going to be a period of time, could be three months, could be six months,

depending on when your car finance agreement was,

that the car finance company will have to get back to you to say X, Y, Z,

or just pay you the money.

So they've made some tweaks behind the scenes, things like they...

The car finance company can just pay you directly.

They don't have to send you a letter by recorded delivery or something.

It's all just a bit, oh, waffly and whatever.

James, help me. What on earth? Is it happening? Is it not happening?

I've read this story probably three or four times.

Still can't work out what they're talking about.

They're like the worst teas possible, aren't they?

Just come on, get on with it.

Tell us what's going on.

We'll reveal it on a day that's not a day where the markets are open

and they'll do all that sort of stuff,

but don't really commit to whether it's happening or not

or whether it will happen by the end of the month,

but it might happen by the end of the month.

So that's news or possibly not news.

We'll see by the end of the month.

Maybe we have to ban all FCA news until the point they've got some news.

I mean, that would probably be better.

I'm just going to wedge one last story in, John,

because I know we're running out of time,

but I just want to talk about DXB auto investments

completing their deal to buy Harwoods, JLR and BMW operations in the UK.

So this is the new firm DXB auto investments coming into the UK,

the Dubai based.

We heard about this a little bit earlier,

the back end of last year that this was in the off-in,

but now this is official confirmation that that deal has gone through

and DXB auto investments have taken over those Harwoods businesses.

Now, we know Harwoods has had a tough time over the last few years.

We were reporting on that at length in Cardina Magazine

and talked about it on this podcast.

And this sees an end to a lot of those dealerships in Harwoods hands

and moving on into DXB's hands.

Now, I know they've been interested in the market in the UK for quite some time,

this Dubai based investment firm,

and it'll be interesting to see how they get on.

I'm fascinated to see a new entrant

and whether they're going to try and build this into a much bigger group.

I don't know, we will see, but yeah, interesting to see that one finally completed.

But yes, John, I commend that to the house as my last story.

Very good.

Okay, well, I'm tempted to go to Mark and Tony for comment on that,

but I think we're slightly running out of time, so I might just have to wrap it up.

So I'm going to ask first, Tony, before we ask your verdict,

are there any stories you think we should have talked about this week, but we haven't?

No, I think you've covered everything that's happened really this week.

I mean, the Peter Waddell story, that's obviously very, very interesting,

because it's gossip, isn't it, really?

The FCA is a story that's a non-story, I think,

and do DXB know something about Jaguar that the rest of the world don't know yet?

For them to wonder my hard words, is there something that...

Maybe they bought that one in February.

Yeah, I guess.

One lonely F-pace somewhere.

Yeah.

Lovely.

So, actually, I'll go to Mark.

Mark, this is going very well.

Mark, are there any stories you think we should have covered, but we haven't?

I think that was a comprehensive piece of news coverage.

Comprehensive, very nice.

Thank you.

Very kind.

Right, so I'm now going to ask the verdict.

So, God, Tony, what's your story of the week then?

Always a gossip.

The Waddell story.

Lovely, that's one for me, and Mark.

I'm going DXB.

I'm interested to see where that goes.

Well, that's one all, John.

So, I'm going to have to give you one.

That's five, and I'm going to take one.

It's four, so it's five, four, John, on the scoreboard.

OK, so next week we'll just both start talking at the same time.

Like normal.

Exactly.

Well, on that very collegiate note, it's time to end the podcast.

All that's left for me to say is thank you to Tony for coming on today.

It's been great to talk to you and talk about business,

and we haven't talked about Subaru that much, which is very disappointing,

but I'm sure we'll have you on again to go through the positives

and negatives of the Outback and the Forester.

Nice to see you, Tony.

And thank you as well.

Well, to Mark, it's been great to have you on and get your insight

on what's going on in a used and new car market.

Thank you.

Nice to see you, Mark.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you as well to James for getting up at five in the morning

and writing things on his Subscriber Only sub-stack,

and thank you for listening.

We'll be back next week with another episode, would you believe?

So make sure to subscribe so you can be notified when that goes live.

If you want to come along to our conference,

we're going to get this in first.

Do head to CardiLive.co.uk, because it's just under two weeks away now,

and tickets are going to sell out at some stage.

The room is only so big.

If you want to check out the stories you mentioned today,

take a look in the show notes below or head to CardiMagazine.co.uk.

Thanks for listening and goodbye.

0:00

64:22

Peter Waddell court case continues, DxB snaps up Harwoods JLR & BMW ops, and car finance redress scheme to be confirmed this month – with Tony Sciascia & Marc Palmer, episode 246

Autotrader

Mercedes-Benz CLK

Next Gear

Carwow

franchised retailer

used cars

BMW M4

Mitsubishi Outlander

official importer

MG

Kia

Hyundai

add-ons

paint protection

service plan

part exchanges

electric cars

plug-in hybrid

supply

Nissan Leaf

Volkswagen Egolf

Dodge Charger

Dodge Challenger

Tesla

Seat

Fiat

Ford

Audi

Renault

Honda

Jaguar Fpace

Subaru Outback

About this episode

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