Jan to March 2008 in the price guide they quoted over 3000 vehicles. A lot of the reduction in numbers is due to the introduction of WLTP testing, where every car with every option had to be tested individually so manufactures started to reduce the number of options avaialble and replaced these with ‘packs’ in many cases.
Hi wmcforum. You’ve made the point before about less models being available nowadays and whilst I don’t wish to appear argumentative I really don’t think this is the case. In fact, I think the opposite is true.
I can’t find any stats to support my theory, but let’s just take BMW as an example. ‘When I were a lad’ their offering was 3, 5 and 7 series saloons, followed some years later by Touring models in the 3 and 5. Model choices were around 3 or 4 different engines and SE or M-Sport only. When the Motability offering was at its peak, BMW probably had 1,3,5 and 7 series cars, plus X1, X3 and X5 SUV’s again all in SE or M-Sport. Probably 3 or 4 diesel and petrol engines for each. Obviously they weren’t all available on Motability. Nowadays, they have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 & 8 series cars, X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6 and X7 SUV’s with many of the cars available as saloons, coupes, convertibles and estates with variations in between. Most are available in SE, X-Line, Sport, M-Sport and M-Sport Plus variants and have a huge choice of petrol diesel, PHEV and electric engines. . With a few exceptions, I think that many other manufacturers have followed similar product development strategies. In spite of this huge increase in models, trim levels and engines we have less choice in the scheme than we had years ago.