National car dealer ACF Car Finance has completed its triangulation of London with the opening of a third car showroom to the north of the capital in Hemel Hempstead.

Replacing smaller premises in Dunstable, the new 12,500sq ft building gives faster motorway access for credit-impaired used car buyers from the city and its suburbs, it said.

With locations also to the south in Maidstone, and to the west in Heathrow, ACF Car Finance said that its showrooms are now within less than an hour's drive for all of London's eight million population.

Mark Jones, senior manager of operations at ACF Car Finance, said that growing demand from London area customers had prompted the opening of the new showroom:

"As a rule, customers visiting our premises do so by appointment after having been approved for a loan by our parent company, The Funding Corporation," said Jones.

"Naturally, we are keen to minimise the waiting time for appointments, so Hemel Hempstead will now allow us to achieve this by sharing demand among our three London satellite premises.

"This site is just half a mile from the M1, so we also put major areas of population as far away as Leicester within the two-hour drive time we know our customers are prepared to make.

"Our buyers tend to be happy to travel further because of the certainty that they have been accepted for a loan, often after many previous refusals from other lenders," he added.