The most read story on AM-online in May was Vauxhall-related for the third month in a row, and detailed the rescue from administration of Now Vauxhall's sites by PSA's own dealer group and Eden Motor Group.

Rawdon Glover was appointed managing director at Jaguar Land Rover UK, succeeding Jeremy Hicks. Glover had been Jaguar Land Rover's global director of customer services since 2013. At Citroen UK, managing director Bek Hassan announced he was leaving the UK for a new senior position in Paris with parent PSA Group. His replacement was British-born Karl Howkins, previously managing director of Opel Switzerland (AM interviewed Howkins in November).

Auto Trader announced that it would bypass auctions by selling company cars direct to dealers in a shake-up of fleet remarketing. In a similar move, LeasePlan announced that it would sell ex-lease cars directly to consumers via an online sales platform, CarNext.com. 

Also in the digital sphere, Volvo Car UK teamed up with Amazon to offer consumers ‘Prime Now' test drives, where the online retailer would arrange the delivery of a Volvo V40 hatchback to their door.

AM published the ID50 – the UK’s top 50 independent used car dealers by turnover – in May, which surpassed the £4billion mark for the first time. Motorpoint continued to lead the table, with CarGiant in second place. The full ID50 table is available here.

Also illustrating the success that independents were having in the 'year of the used car', Big Motoring World, number four in the ID50, opened a used car supermarket specialising in used Audis and Volkswagens and stocking more than 2,000 cars, at Bluebell Hill near Chatham in Kent. And Imperial Car Supermarkets (number seven in the ID50), which had grown from six to 11 sites in three years, said it would reach 20 used car retail sites by the end of 2019.