Alfa Romeo "Test Me" campaign

Alfa Romeo’s latest television commercial, entitled ‘Test Me’, will be launched this month in a year-long marketing campaign focused on highlighting the reasons why people should buy or lease an Alfa Romeo car. Alfa Romeo recorded impressive UK sales figures in 2011 and wants to  build on this success with the new advertising campaign.

The marketing initiative  compares the MiTo and Giulietta against their closest competitors to emphasise why you could choose an Alfa Romeo instead of a BMW for example. There is also a dedicated website where you can find further information on the campaign at www.alfaromeo.co.uk/testme. 

Some of the comparisons where Alfa Romeo is offering head-to-head examples against BMW and Volkswagen are as follows:

• The Alfa Giulietta 1.4 TB MultiAir 170 bhp ALFA TCT (semi-automatic transmission) is currently the best-in-class for CO₂ emissions at just 121 g/km against the Volkswagen Golf 1.4 TSI 160 DSG at 139 g/km for example.
• The Alfa MiTo 1.3 JTDM-2 85 bhp Sprint possesses fuel efficiency of up to 80.7 mpg on a combined cycle. The Mini One D achieves 74.3 mpg as a direct comparison model.
• The Alfa Giulietta, with a class leading Euro NCAP crash safety score of 106, is higher than the new  BMW 1 Series score of 103.
• All MiTo and Giulietta models offer 3 years complimentary servicing. This is available at an additional cost on VW Polo and Golf models.

Damien Dally, Head of Brand for Alfa Romeo UK comments: “Customers appreciate the stylish lines and sleek design of an Alfa Romeo, but due to preconceived misconceptions, some turn to our competitors, wrongly believing they offer a better proposition”.

He went on to say, “With the new ‘Test Me’ campaign, we can prove that Alfa Romeo offers customers significantly more than the likes of our key German competitors, together with Alfa’s passion, heritage and design flair inherent in every model.  We also boast class-leading economic credentials such as fuel efficiency and environmental considerations. Our customers are able to drive away in something extra special which possesses the perfect combination of style and substance”.

If you want to compare contract hire prices for Alfa Romeo, against the likes of Audi, BMW or Volkswagen, try our Vehicle Type Shopper and select those manufacturers. This quote engine will then display the monthly lease prices and you can see which models offer the best value for money, as well as CO2 and combined mpg.

up! five-door

Volkswagen’s award-winning up! city car is now easier than ever to get into with the introduction of the new five-door model. The new five-door up! has a 2.42 m long wheelbase that offers you impressive interior space, a large 251-litre boot, an efficient three-cylinder engine, new-to-the-class safety features plus an innovative infotainment system. 

Rear passengers in the five-door up! will benefit from exactly the same space as those in the three-door model, with 947 mm of headroom (versus 993 mm in the front) and 789 mm of legroom.  The rear seat base is also set a little bit higher than that in the front, at 378 mm (versus 306 mm) giving rear passengers a clearer view of the road ahead.

the up! five-foor comes front and side airbags, ABS with Hydraulic Brake Assist, Isofix child seat preparation in the rear and standard ESP (on all but the entry level Take up! model). It can also be ordered with an optional City Emergency Braking system.  The innovative City Braking System uses sensors to scan the space ahead of the vehicle, applying the brakes automatically if it detects that the car is about to hit an object in front. The up! has a five-star Euro NCAP rating and also the Advanced Award from the European New Car Assessment Programme as well.

Thr first UK deliveries of the five-door Volkswagen up! are expected to start in the second half of the year with prices yet to be confirmed. Volkswagen contract hire prices for the three-door up! are on the site now.

Octavia Green E Line

SKODA has just started road testing the new Octavia Green E Line, their first pure electric vehicle, and is working closely with the Volkswagen Group to gain practical experience with electric propulsion.

The Octavia Green E Line test fleet is based on the Octavia Combi as the chassis from the Combi is ideal for holding the battery, electronic controllers and electric motor. The Octavia Green E line is ideal for inner-city driving and will reach 0-62mph in 12 seconds and onto a top speed of just under 84mph.

The battery pack is situated under the middle and rear floor panel and in part of the boot so is well hidden, allowing the car to seat five adults, plus it has a range of around 93 miles. It takes around 8 hours to fully charge at 230V (single-phase AC) and 2 hours at 400 V (three-phase AC).

In addition to developing its first electric vehicle, SKODA is also continue to bring cars to the market that offer fuel-efficient economical engines with low CO2 emissions. The brand has seven models that manage an average CO2 of less than 100g/km and a total of 63 models that emit less than 130g/km.

If you are interested in finding some of the lowest CO2 cars on the market today, have a go on our Vehicle Type shopper. Just select the type of car (or van) you are looking for and set the range of CO2. You can also see the latest business contract hire (or personal) prices too.

City Emergency Braking on the up!

The Volkswagen up! is not even on UK roads yet, but it has just been awarded the title of What Car? Car of the Year 2012, as well as Best City Car, at the What Car? Awards.

Volkswagen had a successful night at the motor industry’s annual ‘Oscars’, which was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. The Golf was voted the top Small Family Car category for the sixth time overall and fourth consecutive year, and Volkswagen also won the coveted Safety Award.

Commenting on the awards, What Car? editor-in-chief Chas Hallett said: ‘The Volkswagen up! sets new standards for a car at £10,000.  It’s a city car that can seat four adults, while offering new levels of refinement, quality and maturity at this price; none of its rivals feels quite so grown-up.  Buyers will be looking for even more for their money than ever in 2012, so the up! is a worthy winner of the What Car? Car of the Year.’

Meanwhile the Safety Award was in large part the result of the availability of Volkswagen’s new City Emergency Braking system on the up!.  The What Car? judges were impressed by this particular example of ‘big car’ technology filtering down to a smaller model and the system uses sensors to scan the space ahead. It then applies the brakes automatically if it detects that the car is about to hit an object in front. 

Director of Volkswagen UK, Chris Craft, said: ‘We are absolutely delighted with the awards we have received from What Car? this year.  The magazine continues to be one of the most thorough and important sources of new car buying information for UK customers and winning the overall Car of the Year accolade gives our new city car, the up!, the best introduction to the UK market that we could have hoped for”.

First models should arrive in UK showrooms in March and Volkswagen contract hire on the up! range is on the site now.

The full list of category winners at the What Car? Awards 2012 is below.

Contract hire offer

The Volkswagen Golf recorded great sales in 2011 and is known as one of the UK’s most favourite diesel cars. We have a contract hire offer on the site for a Volkswagen Golf 1.6 TDi S 3-door diesel hatchback from only £210.27+VAT per month on a two year deal. Terms are based on a non-maintenance business contract hire agreement, 24 months term, 10,000 miles per annum and six rentals in advance. Other terms are available on request.

The Volkswagen Golf 1.6 TDi S 3-door diesel hatchback provides a combined mpg of 62.8 and emits only 118g/km of CO2 making it an ideal family hatchback, as well as a tax efficient company car for any business fleet. More details can be obtained from our car finance partner by filling out a Contact Form.

Volkswagen Caddy Match

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has just launched a new special edition Volkswagen Caddy, called the Caddy Match. The Caddy Match is only available until the 30th April 2012 and features additional specification over the standard model as follows.

• Air conditioning
• Bluetooth connectivity
• Trip computer
• Electric windows
• Electrically heated and adjustable door mirrors
• Cruise control
• Body-coloured bumpers and wing mirrors
• Wheel trims

It is available in the standard Caddy and the long wheelbase Caddy Maxi (except 4MOTION and EcoFuel models) and has a range of Euro5 emissions compliant 1.6-litre or 2.0-litre TDi engines plus Bluemotion technology.

Paul Vissian, Product Manager at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said,”It’s great to start the New Year with an outstanding special edition for one of the UK’s best-selling compact vans. We’ve studied the market carefully and chosen some of the most popular options to give Caddy Match an unbelievable standard specification and probably the best value for money model we’ve ever offered”.

Ford Fiesta

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has just announced the December 2011 and 2011 full year new car registration figures, with the market down 4.4% at 1.94 million units sold. This was ahead of the 1.92 million forecast number however.

The December numbers fell by 3.7% year-on-year, at 119,188 units, and diesel and alternatively fuelled cars took record market shares over the year, as motorists look for best fuel economy and lower CO2 emissions.

The average new car CO2 emissions figure fell to a new low of 138.1g/km, which is down 4.2% on the 2010 number of 144.2g/km of CO2 and 23.7% below the 2000 figure of 181.0g/km.

Other highlights;

• Fleet sales maintained the new car registrations levels with a 4.7% growth year on year, from 973,233 in 2010 to 1,019,126 in 2011.
• Private registrations fell by 14.1% for the year from 958,005 to 823,094.
• Business (sub-25 fleet) registrations were flat (99,608 in 2010 to 99,033 in 2011).
• Diesel volumes outsold petrol cars for the first time.
• The Ford Fiesta was the best selling car in 2011, with the Volkswagen Golf the best selling diesel model.

Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive, commented,”2011 proved to be a challenging year for the UK motor industry. Total new car registrations were slightly ahead of industry expectations at 1.94 million units, still down 4.4% on 2010. Weak economic growth will make trading conditions tough in 2012, but record numbers of new and updated models, significantly improved fuel efficiency and exciting new technologies will help to encourage consumers into showrooms. Business and consumer confidence will be the key to a successful year, so it will be important that government delivers on its growth strategy and helps to resolve instability in the Euro Zone”.

If you are looking to contract hire a new car in 2012 and want to find the best model for your money, with the lowest CO2 emissions and best fuel economy then do try our Vehicle Type Shopper. You can select how much you want to spend, your CO2 ranges and the best fuel efficient cars too.

Hubert Waltl

Volkswagen Passenger Cars has set some ambitious environmental targets for car production, with a plan to reduce energy consumption, waste volumes, air borne emissions, water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 25 per cent by 2018, at all its factory production plants worldwide.

The “Think Blue. Factory” initiative is an addition to the “Think Blue” portfolio and the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee,was the first factory worldwide to receive a platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental) certificate. This certification confirms Volkswagen’s compliance with some of the most demanding standards for sustainable, environmentally compatible vehicle production.

Hubert Waltl (pictured) , Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars Brand, said,”Through the growing efficiency and productivity of our plants, the Volkswagen brand is already making a key contribution to the achievements of Group strategic targets for 2018. However, we are going a step further: by 2018 we intend to make production at all our plants 25 per cent more environmentally compatible”.

Volkswagen Passat Estate

If you are looking for a top towcar for your caravan or trailer, Volkswagen has just scooped its third 2011 Top Towcar Award bringing the overall number of towcar awards this year to three.

The readers of Caravan Times, the UK’s largest online caravan magazine, have just chosen the Volkswagen Passat from a list of five top towcars as their number one choice. Chris Jeffries, Editor of Caravan Times.co.uk, said,”Among our forum members Volkswagen is renowned as a reliable, practical and economical choice. The Passat Estate beat off strong competition this year and we expect to see plenty of them at campsites across the UK in 2012″.

The Passat was also recognised earlier this year in June 2011 when the Passat Estate TDI 170 PS was named as champion at the Towcar Awards where experts from What Car?, Practical Caravan magazine and The Camping and Caravanning Club also gave it top honours.

The Jetta also triumphed at The Caravan Towcar of the Year Awards 2012 winning its price category and the Overall Towcar of the Year award, with the Touareg also picking up a couple of awards too.

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter

The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter has just been voted Best Large Panel Van for the fourth year running at the Fleet Van Awards 2011. Trevor Gelken, editor of Fleet Van, said,”The judges felt (apart from the VW Crafter which comes off the same line as the Sprinter) no other van came close to the Sprinter in terms of build quality, technology, reliability and sheer good driving experience”.

The Fleet Van Awards are judged by a number of industry experts including George Alexander, Editor of Glass’s Guide to Commercial Vehicles, Alastair Houston, Regional Manager of Northgate Vehicle Hire and Stephen Briers from Fleet News.

Steve Bridge, Van Sales and Marketing Director for Mercedes-Benz UK, said,”We are thrilled to have received such a fantastic accolade for our trusty and reliable Sprinter van. To win any award once is a great achievement, but to win the Fleet Van Large Panel Van award for four consecutive years is truly an outstanding triumph”. Mercedes-Benz contract hire on the Sprinter range is on the site now.