A tasty marketing opportunity is set to present itself for Nissan New Zealand next year, with Nissan set to enter the Australian V8 Supercar series.


Nissan Motorsport (Australia) will run four cars with up and coming V8 Supercar team Kelly Racing.

From 2013, Kelly Racing will campaign as Nissan Motorsport – a formalised factory team. 

The announcement was made in Melbourne today by Nissan Australia Managing Director and CEO Dan Thompson; Ian Moreillon, Executive General Manager, Sales and Fleet, Nissan Australia; V8 Supercar Chairman Tony Cochrane, and; V8 Supercar CEO David Malone.

Content is one of the most important factors to gain search engine traffic.

Simply put, the more content your site has on offer the more traffic your site will receive.

As a car dealer you may think ok that’s great, but what do I need to do to ensure my content is amongst the best?

The Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association has directed members to register for the Emissions Trading Scheme.

With a month of importing completed, the association says members should have an idea now if their numbers will cross the threshold for requiring registration - estimated to be at around the 110 vehicle mark.

The mark is set per 'group' of companies - not just per legal entity.

In just over a month New Zealand will be changing its give way rules - and you may want to start briefing your staff now.

For the sake of your demonstrators and used stock, we suggest you send them all the following information - as borrowed from the NZ Transport agency website:

To make our roads safer, two of the give way rules are changing. These changes come into effect at 5am on Sunday 25 March 2012. Until then the current give-way rules apply.

The dealer principal at Masterton Ford and Mazda operation Fagan Motors says things can't move quick enough as he works to get their latest franchise up and running.

The Colonial Motor Company owned business has taken over Dave Anderson Motorcycles which went under last month with debts of over $1 million.

According to the liquidators report, debts included $725,000 to the Bank of New Zealand, $72,677 to Suzuki New Zealand and $60,376 to GE Finance.

The company had been trading since 1976. The collapse has been blamed on a slowing of sales and the collapse of two significant customers in two years.

Local new car buyers are opting for SUVs in ever increasing numbers to the point that they now represent the largest segment in the market. 

With sales of 18,684 units in 2011, SUVs now enjoy a 29% share of the market – up from 16,326 units and 26% share in 2010. Overall that represents a 14% increase in sales in a market that was only up by 3% last year.

The result is that models such as the Toyota Highlander, Holden Captiva, Ford Territory, Kia Sportage and Hyundai Santa Fe, amongst others, all experienced good volume growth in 2011.

Systime Automotive Solutions has been appointed the sole distributor of the acclaimed Autoline dealer management system (DMS) in Australia.

Systime is part of the TSI Group, New Zealand’s largest provider of specialist business software and systems to the automotive and associated industries. 

Systime has been distributing and supporting Autoline in New Zealand since 1999 and has the largest user base of automotive dealership clients.

TSI Group general manager Darryn Crothall says that ADP’s decision to appoint Systime in Australia is a ringing endorsement of the consistently high quality of service delivered to the New Zealand automotive market by the Systime team over many years.

The Superbowl kicks off next Monday, but the advertising surrounding it has kicked off early.

A teaser video for Honda’s effort for this years game had some blogs convinced a sequel to the legendary 80’s movie ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’ was on its way, however the full length ad, revealed this week, showed a somewhat different reality.

If you review all the internet enquiry your dealership receives, you will find a large percentage comes in between 6pm and 11pm. In this case, how and when does a dealership respond?

Are you waiting until the next morning to reply?

In today’s fast paced and demanding world there is a huge amount of on-line information and choice available to customers. Many enquires are sent at night simply because that is when many on-line shoppers have time available to spend researching a car, ute or van of their choice.

Some on-line shoppers do not have access to email at work so, therefore, their logical preference is to send emails from their home at night.

The woman charged over the death of former-dealer Lance Bain has appeared in court again.

Natalie Ann Van Breugel, 45, is charged with the manslaughter of Bain with a mallet.

Van Breugel will defend the charge along with one of grievous bodily harm and threatening to kill.

The country’s biggest gathering of classic cars at Ellerslie Race Course Sunday February 12th will also feature one of the biggest line ups of new prestige and performance cars seen in this country.

Dealerships quickly snapped up all available space to target the affluent classics owners’ market – with organisers turning away would-be exhibitors as late as last week.

New dealerships and models debuting at the show  include Rolls Royce; Alfa will reveal its new automatic Gulietta, Mini is expected to unveil its latest; and Giltrap Group dealerships will feature Aston Marton to Lamborghini, Audi, Bentley, Porsche, and VW. 

A campaign to encourage discussion about the expansion plans of the Ports of Auckland has turned on the vehicle trade, with criticism of a planned multistorey car park to replace current parking on Captain Cook wharf.

Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney has been criticising aspects of the ports' plan this week, which would see the extension of their current container terminals into the harbour, while Captain Cook and Marsden wharves, currently used for the vehicle trade, would be returned to the city for public open space.

Swney told the NZ Herald today that the vehicle business should not happen in, “any way, shape or form on our waterfront".

The paper noted that Northport, which both Ports of Auckland and Port of Tauranga have holdings in, was interested in the trade.