Exclusive: Stellantis boss on his agency sales plan, Vertu’s eco terrorist attack and more car finance woe

Here's your round-up of Car Dealer Magazine's biggest headlines that you cannot afford to miss this week

Hello and welcome to your weekly round-up of this week’s most important motor trade headlines – all digested for you in one place.

In this week’s update I give you a Substack exclusive. I’ve been chatting to Stellantis boss Eurig Druce and he’s given his opinion on EV incentives and his plans for a Vauxhall rebrand (more on that below).

But I also got the chance to ask him about his plans for agency sales in the UK – and his answers were surprising and included exclusively in this week’s briefing.

Also, Lloyds tucks away yet more money to deal with potential compensation claims over the car finance crisis and Vertu suffers an attack from ‘eco terrorists’.

Plus:

• Chancellor’s finance set-back

• The most expensive stolen cars

• Google heads to Car Dealer Live

• Fastest and slowest selling used cars

• Carwow launches Wallet

• More BCA job losses

• Pinewood signs deal with Canadians

Ok, let’s get into the headlines and my take on the week’s news.

To read this weekly briefing, you need to be a subscriber on Substack. It’s delivered directly to your inbox every Friday via the Substack app and email.

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What’s happening?

This week I got the chance to sit down for a chat with Eurig Druce, the new boss of Stellantis in the UK and I was impressed with his honest answers to my questions.

Druce has a big job on his hands. Not only is he overseeing all of the car manufacturers’ brands – which include Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, Abarth, and DS in the UK – but he is also currently acting MD of Vauxhall.

Druce has found time to appear on stage at our forthcoming Car Dealer Live event on March 13 and will be taking more of my questions then, but this week I had time to chat about his ideas for boosting EV demand and how he plans to relaunch Vauxhall (more on those below).

But I also got the chance to ask him about his thoughts on the ill-fated agency sales plans and his response surprised me.