Ford want to increase its dealership network by 25pc over the next two years.

It is to go with a renewed product offensive and a specific aim to reach more private buyers with these and existing models, led by the latest version of the Focus (right).
The Ford Focus brand is now 10 years old so it is timely that the sharply styled new models are now in UK showrooms. Deliveries to UK customers have started this month but most will be with their new users from 1 March, the new 08 registration plate date.

Focus joins the new Mondeo range and they will be joined by the Kuga medium SUV (right), the replacement Fiesta and the new Ka replacement.
Over the next two years Ford want to add 50 privately owned dealers to it network bringing it up to a total of 248 sales and service outlets.
Acknowledging that retail customers tend to buy locally Ford’s new retail outlets will be mainly located in small towns. In the recent past they have concentrated on sites in large cities.

Some of the new dealers already added are in Illminster, Somerset, Pontardawe in South Wales, Malmesbury Wiltshire and Cupar Scotland. Nine more will be appointed by the end of March and five more by the end of June.
Ford has been the top selling brand in the UK for more than 30 years and last year it sold 348,982 passenger cars. In January this year they increased their retail sales by 20pc although their overall sales were down by 5.3pc in a market that showed a decrease in new car sales of 2.1pc.

The outgoing Focus was still the overall top selling model in the UK in January with 9,657 registrations and since the original Focus was launched in 1998 almost 1,120,000 new Focus cars have been delivered to UK customers out of a total of five million produced in Europe. In 2007 the Focus retained its UK top selling spot with 126,928 sales.
The latest Focus models are not totally new but Ford says the changes are far more extensive than is usual for a model range undergoing the usual mid-life update.
The new Focus models adopt Ford’s crisper ‘kinetic’ exterior styling philosophy coupled with enhanced interior quality and better equipment levels, for more or less the same price as the outgoing models. This relatively new policy introduced by Ford for their latest Mondeo models in 2007 is aimed at getting customers, especially retail buyers, back to Ford and restoring pride of ownership.