New Vauxhall chairman and managing director Tim Tozer maintains that the brand is still aiming to be the number one brand in the UK but in key markets like retail and true fleet.

Tozer has recently joined Vauxhall from Autobinck Holding NV in The Hague following Duncan Aldred's move to become Buick-GMC US Vice President of sales, service and marketing.

Tozer spoke to AM at the Geneva Motor Show this week and said that while the brand is aiming to be the retail and true fleet leader in the UK, it will not enter into unprofitable segments of the market and growth will be sustainable and profitable.

Tozer joined Vauxhall UK on February 24 and in the very short time he has been in the role he visited some of the Vauxhall network and the brand's factories.

He is planning to visit more dealers in the UK network and understand where the Vauxhall brand sits in the UK.

Tozer said: "I need to assess where the brand sits in the minds of consumers in the UK. I think some brands paint a very clear picture of what they stand for and when I took this job it wasn't clear to me what Vauxhall represents to UK customers."

Vauxhall has five new models due over the next couple of years, including a new Corsa and new UK-built Astra next year. These will be key volume drivers for Vauxhall if it wants to overtake Ford.

Tozer said the new Corsa's interior was a particularly impressive feature on the next generation model.

The UK is the biggest European market for Corsa with sales of around 83,000 a year, well ahead of second place Germany on 50,000 and a healthy base on which to launch the new model.

Reinforcing its optimism, Vauxhall says that sales of Meriva, which has just had a facelift and gets the all-new 1.6-litre ‘Whisper' diesel engine and ‘soft' change manual gearbox, were up 26% in January compared to January 2013.

New Astra, built at Ellesmere Port, will get far more UK-sourced content, rising from the current model's 10% to more than 20%. The company says that sourcing components in sterling rather than euro will provide a competitive edge when it comes to selling cars to UK buyers.

Vauxhall finished 2013 with 259,444 cars registered in comparison to Ford’s market leading position of 310,865 units. Vauxhall will have to boost passenger car sales by over 20% by 2016 in order to overtake Ford purely on total volume.