Tim Tozer, Chairman and Managing Director of Vauxhall, has been in post since February and is on a mission to redefine GM’s UK-only volume brand. Dave Leggett recently caught up with him.
How’s the UK car market looking?
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
At face value, it’s very strong and it has certainly been a very strong market this year, but I think there are some signs of softening, particularly on retail, less so on fleet. Having said that, the market has been surprising us every month. It feels as though it should be softening and as though we should start to see that in the numbers, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve talked to a few of my colleagues and we’re actually a bit bemused by the strength of it and just how long the period of market growth has lasted.
And a projection for the UK car market in 2015?
At the moment we are looking at a small increase on this year – around 4% – but that was on a number for this year that we had two or three months ago. This year has come in a little stronger in recent months, so maybe we’ll be looking at a flatter picture for 2015. There are a number of uncertainties also – some political uncertainty for example [2015 sees a General Election in the UK]. It may be a bit stronger next year, but I don’t think we can plan for it to carry on growing at the kind of pace it has been growing at.
And Vauxhall’s product cycles? How is new product for the market looking?
Very positive. We have got a lot that is starting to happen. We have just launched Vivaro and we’ll see the benefit of that in the market in 2015. Next year will also see the market impact of new Corsa and the Viva. So the taps that were turned on in investment terms by GM three years ago – and it’s not just vehicles, but powertrain also – that’s starting to flow through. We’re on the cusp of some very important new product coming at us for the UK market.
We are really going to invest in the Vauxhall brand. It’s being taken on a journey and that will be kick-started with the new Corsa when we start to promote that in the early part of February.
Nothing is easy in this business, but we have some very good product coming. The cars hang together extremely well, we have a very strong organisation and a brand that is ripe for the journey we have planned. I think we will have a very good year next year.
And the Corsa is the most important model for you in 2015?
Yes, because that’s the ‘meat and two veg’ of our franchise. It is 40% of our volume, it’s a cracking car and it has stood the test of time remarkably well. In truth, the current Corsa is a seven-year-old car which is still selling 80,000 units a year [UK]. The new Corsa is quantum leap on that car.
Can you run market leader Ford close in the UK car market?
You know the history of the public utterances and I am not very keen that our objectives should be in the public domain like that. And I certainly do not underestimate Ford; I have been a Ford retailer in my previous role and I do not underestimate them.
However, there is one area where I think we can give them a good run for their money. This time next year we will have three small cars and they will have one and a half – a half because Ka is so old it’s not really a full car. We will have new Corsa, Viva and Adam (which is growing as a range). And that area of the market is actually where we have been weak versus Ford. If you look at our performance in the A- and B-segment [combined], we have a 12% share and they have nearly 20%. So that’s where they have been stronger and that’s where we are going to really bear down on them.
