Peugeot Bipper

The Peugeot Bipper has just been crowned “City Van of the Year” at the 2011 Fleet Van Awards. The Peugeot Bipper is a popular choice for businesses and companies up and down the country and Trevor Gelken, editor of Fleet Van, said,”This was a closely-fought contest, but the Bipper was the overall winner, assisted by the prominence of Peugeot’s renewed focus on fleet support and after sales”.

The Peugeot Bipper van has compact proportions, coupled to a range of frugal diesel engines and transmissions with manual, EGC and Stop & Start systems available It has a payload of up to 660kg and a load volume of 2.5 cubic metres and is renowed for its durability and quality.

Phil Robson, Peugeot Fleet Director, said,”The Bipper is a terrific commercial van and throughly deserves to be the “Fleet City Van of the Year 2011. Winning this prestigious award is yet another demonstration of the importance we place in product excellence and good customer support and after sales service”.  The full Peugeot commercial range is available now on contract hire including the Bipper, Boxer , 207 car-derived van, Partner and Expert.

Skoda VisionD Concept

SKODA has just released images of its stunning new VisonD Concept which was first shown off at the Geneva Motor show in March of this year. This new concept clearly shows off some of the future styling cues for future SKODA cars.

The model has a longwheel base and shortoverhangs, with a distinctive and sporty design and conveys a youthful, yet contemporary appearance.

Skoda VisionD Concept

SKODA UK had a record year last year selling over 41,000 vehicles, which was up 10.5% when compared to the previous year and now has around a 2% market share in the UK. They have also been in the top ten of the J.D. Power of Customer Satisfaction for the past 18 years and are renowned for their reliability and offer fleet customers great value for money.

Contract hire offer on a Kangoo Van

If you are a small business and in need of a new van then we have a two-year contract hire special offer on the site for the Renault Kangoo ML19dCi 70bhp Freeway diesel van from only £146.14+VAT per month, or around £37+VAT per week. This contract hire offer is based over two years, non-maintained, six rentals in advance and at 10,000 miles per annum. Other contract hire terms are available from our finance partner.

The Renault Kangoo ML19dCi 70bhp Freeway diesel van emits just 140g/km of CO2 and returns 53.3 combined mpg so is economical and would suit the needs of a small business (or even larger fleet user) that is looking for a commercial vehicle that’s reliable too.

Mitsubishi L200

The legendary Mitsubishi L200 has just been voted “Pick-up of the Year” 2011 at the recent Fleet Van Awards seeing off stiff competition from the Nissan Navara, Toyota Hilux and Volkswagen Amarok.

The L200 has led the way in the pick-up sector for many years remaining the market leader with a 30.5% share of the UK pick-up market and offers a wide range of pick-ups to suit the requirements of every commercial vehicle (or private) operator.

The judges at Fleet Van said,”The L200 won this award thanks to its greater range of derivatives and load bed options and level of availability. Mitsubishi offers all the options for all fleet requirements. The L200 is also strong on residual values, comes with a big range of horsepower options and enjoys strong back-up from the Mitsubishi dealer network. Add in competitive pricing and the L200 justifies its place as Pick-up of the Year”. Mitsubishi contract hire prices on the L200 pick-up range are on the site now.

Volkswagen Caddy

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has just picked up three awards for their Caddy and Transporter vans, plus the overall title of Fleet Van of the Year (for the Transporter), at the Fleet Van Awards 2011. This follows on from winning three van categories in the 2012 What Van? Awards.

The Caddy was voted Small Van of the Year by Fleet Van and the Transporter, Medium Panel Van of the Year with Trevor Gelken, editor of Fleet Van, commenting,”With new engines, a range that the others can’t match, rock solid residual values and superb dealer back-up, the Volkswagen Caddy knocked last year’s winner of its perch into second place”.

Volkswagen Transporter

On the Transporter, he said,”Such is the legendary might of this van, which dates back to the 1950s, that it wins Medium Van of the Year again- as it has done every year since our awards began. The judges could find nothing to touch it in the sector”.

Alastair Hemmings, National Fleet Manager at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said,”What more can I say? With no less than six awards for our vans in one week, I’m sure these will prove to even more fleet managers that Volkswagen’s efficient and desirable range of commercial vehicles make very good sense for every business”.

We have contract hire prices available now for the whole trage of Volkswagen commercial vehicles.

The Classic Cars Classified website for classic car enthusiasts has just been sold to Bauer Media for an undisclosed sum. The website was established on 2004 and is the number one website for anyone interested in buying or selling classic cars from around the world. The site receives around 1 million visitors per month from the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and has just been re-built to improve its ease of use.

Bauer Media (who also own Fleet News - one of Comparecontracthire.com’s partners) commented,”The UK’s best website for buying and selling classic cars, parts and automobilia – Classicarsforsale.co.uk – has been redesigned to make both buying and selling a classic car even quicker and easier as well as more secure. It is still completely FREE for private sellers to place adverts and there are great packages available for dealers and traders”.

BMW 3 Series

The UK’s largest vehicle reliability survey has been conducted by Fleet News with the top FN50 vehicle leasing companies (by fleet size), who run in excess of 1.2 million cars and vans. This annual analysis asks the leasing companies to rank the best vehicles and manufacturers for reliability, with tables then created for a top 10 for cars and a top 5 for vans (see below).

German brands have dominated the results this year for both the car and van category, with the BMW 3 Series the most reliable car (and top car brand), the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter knocking the Ford Transit off the top spot for most reliable van, with Volkswagen leaping ahead of Ford overall, in the van reliability league table.

Fleet News Editor, Stephen Briers, said, “BMW has built on its position as most reliable car manufacturer supplying the UK’s largest contract hire companies, adding another attribute to low CO2 emissions, modest overall running costs and rewarding driver behaviour and making its cars more desirable to fleet operators”.

Volkswagen vans

On vans, Stephen said,”Van reliability is arguably more important than car reliability as vital supply chains can be disrupted through unnecessary vehicle downtime. Volkswagen has demonstrated with its leading position as a van manufacturer, and high placing for its models, that fleet operators can choose its vehicles in confidence”

Most reliable cars according to top FN50 leasing companies

1. BMW 3 Series
2. Honda Accord
3. Volkswagen Golf
4. Audi A3
5. Toyota Avensis
6. Nissan Qashqai
7. Volkswagen Passat
8. Audi A4
9. Mazda6
10. BMW 5 Series

Most reliable car manufacturers

1. BMW
2. Audi
3. Honda
4. Volkswagen
5. Toyota
6. Nissan
7. Mercedes-Benz
8. Ford
9. Lexus
10. Skoda

Most reliable vans

1. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter
2. Ford Transit
3. Volkswagen Caddy
4. Ford Transit Connect
5. Volkswagen Transporter

Most reliable van manufacturers

1. Volkswagen
2. Ford
3. Mercedes-Benz
4. Fiat
5. Renault 

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has released the October new car registrations data and the new car market seems to have stabilised. The total UK car sales in October were 134,944 units (up 2.6%) and this is the second increase in three months. The market is still on track to achieve the full year prediction of 1.923 million units, however the SMMT remains cautious about sales in 2012.

Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive, said,”October’s new car market rose 2.6% on last year -a positive result despite the uncertain economic climate. We expect market conditions to remain challenging and hope the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement later this month will help to boost economic growth and consumer confidence”.

Headlines from the October data

• Registrations in October were helped by a sharp recovery in the small car markets, with the Supermini segment up 17.4% and the Mini segment up 4.7%
• The Ford Fiesta was the best selling model on October and year to date
• The Volkswagen Golf was the best selling diesel model in October
• The Fleet market (25 vehicles and above) grew by 7.9% to 73,712 car units registered
• Business regsitrations (sub 25 fleets) was also up by 9.7% to 6,189 units
• Private sector (consumers) fell by 4.3% to 55,043 units

Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion

The Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion has just added another green award to its bulging trophy cabinet having been named as Green Vehicle of the Year at the 2011 AFCO Fleet Awards last week. ACFO (Association of Car Fleet Operators) is the UK’s largest body representing UK businesses which run fleets of cars or commercial vehicles.

The Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion offers a combined fuel economy of 74.3mpg and emits just 99g/km of CO2 and this award comes shortly after What Car? named the BlueMotion “small green family car” and Auto Express gave the car its Green Award honour.

The Volkswagen Passat and Golf models were also shortlisted for the ACFO Fleet Car of Year award and the Volkswagen Caddy was nominated in the Small Van of the Year category. Volkswagen contract hire is on the site now for all models.

Integral UK handover

Integral UK Ltd, the building management services firm, is one of the largest independent providers of property maintenance services in the UK, with around 1,600 clients in 40,000 locations. With a team of 1,300 engineers and technicians they have one of the UK’s largest mobile maintenance fleets, with around 1,200 vehicles.

They have just taken delivery of the latest batch of new Renault cars and vans as part of their solus arrangement with the French manufacturer. Renault has provided Integral with a fleet of 227 Kangoo vans, 272 Megane Sport Tourers, 205 Trafic vans and six Master vans on a solus agreement since 2010. The latest batch of six vehicles were handed over at Renault Birmingham, including liveried Trafic and Kangoo vans, plus Megane Sports Tourers.

Keith Abell is the Fleet Manager at Integral UK and he commented,”We selected Renault for our fleet needs as the vehicles were renowned for their style, comfort, practicality and frugality”.

If you are interested in leasing a new Renault vehicle then we have the full range on the site now.