James Weston, who has been chief executive of AM100 car dealer group Stellantis & You (formerly Robins & Day) for seven years, has left the business.

Weston started at the motor retailer, which is owned by carmaker Stellantis, in 2001.as an assistant sales manager.

On LinkedIn Weston stated: "I may have been the leader of this business, but the people have always been the drivers! Their passion, belief, and most importantly their engagement, are the key to their success.

"I will look on with pride and admiration as the business and the people continue to progress, I'm sure you will smash it!"

He has been appointed to a global role with Stellantis, as vice president of pre-owned vehicle new business development.

Stellantis's many car brands include Vauxhall/Opel, Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and others, and it has the Spoticar multi-brand used car retail programme across Europe.

In 2020 Weston told AM how the UK's periods of lockdown has allowed his management team to rethink and refresh their strategic plans for its 43 car dealerships, adding "Right at the very start (of lockdown) one of my team said to me that we have to learn from this. We’ve taken the approach as a group, right from March, that if we came out of lockdown and just do as we always did then it would be ‘COVID: 1, Robins & Day: 0’. That was never our intention – we hate losing.”

The AM100 group's dealerships tend to be in high cost, large urban areas, but in the past decade more and more have become multi-marque sites, representing several of the group brands rather than simply their original partner, Peugeot.

This has come from a drive for efficiency – allowing properties to offer a broader range of new and used cars can help to attract more customers and offset the cost base, he said at the time.