“The Suzuki brand and product range has stayed in its own market, with £5,995 and £8,995 cars, and now that the Korean brands want to be more like Honda and charge more, it has no competition.

“Obviously we’ve seen every single up and down with Honda over the years. We’ve been here when it did 107,000 units, but even now it’s much lower we haven’t really seen any difference in our own volume. We’re still selling a lot of cars. I hope we’ll sell even more from 2015. At the moment, we have only three Hondas selling in volume, and we’ve 18 months until Honda starts putting out a lot of new models.

“The Suzuki brand within our business doesn’t compete with Honda at all. Honda hasn’t any small cheap cars here and it won’t get any because of the cost to make them.”

Thanks to John Banks Group’s resilient performance – regularly top quartile for both Honda and Suzuki – it has good relationships with its national sales companies. Phil Crossman, Honda UK managing director, recently told AM the dealer is one of its star performers.

Banks sees it as a two-way relationship, with the NSC charged with doing the right marketing to bring customers to the dealer’s door, and the dealer tasked with looking after that customer well and selling profitably.

“It’s our business and we sell their products, and it’s our responsibility to make sure we can run our business and make a profit,” Banks said.

The figures indicate he takes this responsibility very seriously. In 2011, John Banks Group made a 1.8% return on sales, which rose to 2.1% in 2012 and will climb further, Smith insisted. A keen eye on costs is vital, he said. In fact, because the group didn’t need full-time accountancy staff, Smith moved the accounts team outside to form the One Stop Accountancy brand, an external company that serves other clients as well as John Banks.

What comes next? Banks said the company is at a point where it can consider its options, and an opportunity to expand again with Honda is on the horizon. In addition, the dealer group has full planning permission for a new showroom at its 1.8-acre Cheddars Lane site in Cambridge, which currently houses its standalone service centre.

Although the development has been shelved until the market has recovered, once it’s built the group may re-home its Honda showroom from the current Newmarket Road property and rent that site out. Banks said the rent would be more profitable than adding a small franchise.