CONFIDENTIAL

GOSSIP | RUMOURS | TRENDS

MERCEDES CUSTOMERS are not ready to undertake the entire process of buying a car online, according to Britta Seeger, sales and marketing boss. However, the firm is offering online sales in certain markets – including its Smart brand in the UK – as one option for customers. “It is not a key strategy for us to push sales online, but we want to offer diversity,” Seeger said.

THE SALE OF Vauxhall from General Motors will mean the end of its Aussiesourced VXR8 models – but not before one last one arrives. Vauxhall has bought one of the 295 HSV GTSR W1s, driven last week in Autocar and built to mark the end of vehicle production for Holden in Australia. The 636bhp super-saloon will arrive in the UK in the autumn. DON’T EXPECT A Ferrari concept car any time soon. Speaking about its 2007 Millechili concept, Ferrari technical director Michael Leiters said: “I don’t like it. Well, I do because you can go to the limit, but what do you bring home? You don’t have to homologate the car. You don’t have to make money. I like internal innovation and I prefer to make cars for the street.”

PSA BOSS CARLOS Tavares believes strongly in launching only one model per year per region for each of its brands (Peugeot, Citroën and DS) because it allows the respective car makers to focus properly on a model’s roll-out. Tavares coined the phrase ‘launch and leave’ – the practice of not executing a vehicle’s launch properly – which he said is “not successful”.