To Infiniti and beyond ... 31 | 01 | 2011
LOCATION, LOCATION, location – that’s certainly the secret of success for the new Infiniti centre in Glasgow. From its base at Braehead – rapidly becoming Glasgow’s upmarket motor mile — to the west of the city, it serves the whole of Scotland and at the moment the north of England too. The Infiniti centre is only the fourth in the country after the south east and Birmingham – another seven are scheduled to open this year.
According to the centre manager Jason Blane, the Braehead centre (pictured) which opened last October, is perfectly situated; sharing the same intersection just off the M8 is the well-established Glasgow Audi complex – at one time the largest in the UK – and the brand new Porsche centre, and that has brought spin-offs for Infiniti.
“The past few months have been great,” Blane said. "We’ve been really impressed with the level of traffic coming in here and we’re finding a lot of customers do the rounds, browsing round Audi and Porsche and then coming in here ... and they like what they see.
"The location has definitely been a great boost for us and we’re all in the same kind of market, although we don’t have the range of lower-powered cars at Audi.”
Blane explained they’ve had huge interest across the full range of their luxury upmarket cars. One Bentley owner bought an Infiniti as another family car, and another customer traded in a months-old Toyota Aygo. More commonly though, customers are exchanging Porsche Cayennes, Range Rover Sports and Audi Q7s.
A total of nine jobs were created when the centre opened and Blane expects to add about six more as the business develops. One attraction for customers is the ‘collect and deliver’ offer for Infiniti owners; when their car requires servicing, the customer's car isn't simply picked up and returned on a transporter, but they also have the use of a courtesy car.
Normally this service is limited up to 150 miles from the centre, but in the case of Glasgow it’s available to anywhere in mainland Scotland and they’d even consider extending it to the Scottish islands. Blane admits it’s a challenge serving the whole country from Glasgow, but he and his team are planning to take demonstrators on a Scottish roadshow to let everyone see what all the fuss is about.
Read our roadtest of the Infiniti FX30d GT Premium
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Alan Douglas