ATL Automotive will today unveil two state-of-the-art car showrooms – one will be for Audi and the other for its parent, Volkswagen.

Each respective showroom will be 10,000 square feet residing on a five-acre lot. Both showrooms came in together at a cost of US$13.5 million and are the best car showrooms to be found in the Caribbean.

ATL Automotive Project Manager, Brian Stevenson said: “These showrooms are a quantum leap for vehicle customers in Jamaica and the Caribbean and are on par with anything you will find in a first-world country.

“The experience you will get here is the same you will have in New York, London, Munich or Sydney.”

Chairman of the ATL Group, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, speaking from ATL’s Half-Way-Tree-Road headquarters in Kingston said: ” This year we celebrate 45 years since we were founded and we continue to invest in Jamaica and believe in the Jamaican economy. These showrooms stand as our commitment to providing the best care for Jamaican motorists and will be the best place to work for local motor vehicle technicians. We continue to see a fantastic future for Jamaica and this forms the basis for our continuing investments.”

Volkswagen

The Volkswagen showroom will be headed by brand manager Adam Harris and will house altogether ten model vehicles. This showroom will contain both Volkswagen cars and Volkswagen light commercial vehicles. The cars will consist of the Passat, Passat CC, the Polo, the Golf GTI, the Jetta, the Touareg and the Tiguan. On the light commercial side is the popular Amarok, the Caddy, panel van, the Crafter, the Caravelle and the Transporter.

Volkswagen continues to increase its market share in the light commercial division in Jamaica. In fact, the Amorak was the number one pick-up in Jamaica for both 2011 and 2012 and is still ahead year-to-date. The automatic models went on sale in February of this year and sales continue to go very well.

The presence of the Volkswagen brand continues to grow in Jamaica and in terms of worldwide sales, it is the number two car marker in the world (according to data for January to March 2013). The German car company recently won Importer of the Year (2012) for the Latin America/Caribbean region (except Brazil), this due to Volkswagen increasing its market share in the region by over 100 per cent and also units sold by over 100 per cent.

This year sees Volkswagen as the second best-selling car brand in Jamaica with the Polo coming in as the best-selling sub compact car and the Passat as the best-selling mid-size sedan for the first quarter of this year.

The showroom hosts a Configuration Wall, which allows customers to select both the colour and the fabric of their prospective vehicle. It also boasts a direct reception room, which allows customers to bring their vehicle into the showroom, and drive it onto a hoist for diagnostic testing and other relevant examinations.

Both showrooms employed the modular architecture concept. This ensures every space can be used to the optimum.

Best showrooms in the Caribbean

The showrooms are generously proportioned, open and clearly laid out. The presentation islands, with their widely varying usage options, provide the ideal presentation platform. Whether it be the models themselves, special campaigns, new technologies – the presentation islands ensure that everything is located and presented to the best effect.

All the furniture and fittings come from Germany. Seated in comfortable, elegant armchairs, customers can take in the full extent of the showrooms, or watch what is going on in the workshops through a plate-glass window.

Customers can use web terminals or vehicle configurators to find out more about the extensive range of products and services of the Volkswagen and Audi brands

The service reception areas are open in design and have a direct link through to the dialogue reception areas, the workshops and the customer waiting areas.

This means that service and sales are placed on an equal footing, and so customers are assured of comprehensive assistance and support in all matters.

These showrooms underscore ATL’s commitment to the two car brands and bolster the Group’s presence in the local motor industry. Already its combined showrooms in Montego Bay come to 8,000 square feet. In Kingston, these showrooms are a significant contribution to the automotive business in Jamaica and indicate ATL Automotive’s faith in the local car industry.

Over the next three years, the company will be investing an additional US$4 million to the service departments. In accordance with its mantra, “Powered by Service” and in anticipation of growing sales, it is determined to provide the best after-sales service in the Caribbean, employing even more people. Already, US$300,000 has been invested in body shop equipment, allowing ATL to conduct bodywork on any aluminum car in the region.

A high tech jig has also been installed, allowing ATL Automotive to fix any car that comes into its showrooms.

Audi

The Audi showroom, headed by Mike Fisher, will display eight cars, namely the A1, A3, A4, A5, A5 Coupe, A5 Sportback, A6, A7, and the SUVs, the Q3,Q5 and Q7. There is the classic Audi Sport Quattro from the 80s on display as well as ATL’s Doug Gore-driven DTM TT racecar. The showroom experience will be enhanced by three televisions linked in to Audi Television in Germany.

The Audi showroom boasts a construction feat never seen before in Jamaica, a curve wall that forms the centrepiece here. The Deputy Chairman of ATL Automotive, Adam Stewart, really pushed the boat out here, exhibiting attention to detail. He flew in professionals from the United States to get this feat of construction engineering perfect.

Stevenson commented: “Adam (Stewart) was determined to do things the way they are supposed to be done and insisted that the curve wall would be the very best. He has been unstinting in ATL’s investment in its motor brands, ensuring that Jamaican motorists get the very best there is.”

Jamaica

ATL Automotive has done tremendously well with the Audi brand in Jamaica, positioning it as the leading premium car to have in the country.

The company has represented Audi in Jamaica for just three years. In its first year, it sold just 14 units. Last year, it sold 178 units. This year ATL Automotive continues to go from strength to strength with Audi and is all set to register another record -breaking year.

For the first three months of this year, ATL Automotive has sold 44 Audi units, almost 20 per cent more than last year’s number of 37 units. This has been driven in the main by the popularity of the Audi Q5.

Last year, ATL sold 19 Q5s in the first three months of the year. For the same period this year, it has sold 27, representing a 42 per cent increase.

In Jamaica today, the Q5 is the number one selling premium vehicle as it also was in 2012. It now outsells the BMW X3, X5 and X6 models as well as Mercedes’ top-selling ML model.

Audi worldwide sales continue to increase in the first quarter of 2013

For the first quarter of this year, Audi has enjoyed the strongest first quarter in its history, with worldwide deliveries reaching around 369,500 units for January through to March. This means the German car manufacturer has improved on the prior year’s corresponding quarter by 6.8 per cent.

According to Audi’s Corporate Communications spokeswoman, Susanne Brieu, Audi year to date has achieved growth in all of its three main sales regions, namely Europe, Asia and North America. Last month alone, Audi handed over 147,700 cars to customers – 3 per cent more than one year earlier.

Last month was the strongest March in Audi’s history. For the first three months of this year, worldwide sales of the compact SUV Q3 gained 58.2 per cent year on year to around 28,550 units. The Q5 grew by 15.6 per cent to 56,350 units.

The United States

Audi ended the first quarter with a record-breaking start to the year in the United States. In March, demand for the Ingolstadt carmaker’s models climbed 14.4 per cent to 13,253 cars. In total Audi delivered 34,186 cars in the United States in the first three months, a gain of 16 per cent. Growth was particularly driven by the Q5 and Q7 SUV models, which grew by 37.3 per cent and 48.4 per cent respectively.

The Americas and the Caribbean

The Americas and the Caribbean enjoyed double-digit growth in first-quarter deliveries for 2013. In Mexico, Audi grew by 48.6 per cent to 2,609 units and in Brazil by 11.1 per cent to 1,157 units.

China

In Audi’s biggest sales market, China, the German carmaker sold over 100,000 units after only three months for the first time in the brand’s 25 years in that market.

In the first quarter, 102,810 cars were handed over to Audi customers, a gain of 14.2 per cent. In March, the rise was at 10.7 per cent to 34,864.

The future for ATL Automotive

The Jamaican economy, though now in the doldrums, will eventually rebound with ATL Automotive well positioned in the motor vehicle industry in Jamaica.

Currently there are 550,000 registered vehicles in Jamaica, which in due course will grow with customers looking increasingly to more premium brands and demanding more from their vehicles. Thus ATL Automotive’s level of investment in this business segment is not a short -term approach, particularly in an aspirational society such as Jamaica. The new showrooms house three distinct categories, namely: Volkswagen cars, Volkswagen light commercial and Audi cars. ATL Automotive, in less than four years, has become the number one seller in the Caribbean in each of these respective categories.

Looking at the broader picture, according to Wards Auto, there are now just over 1.1 billion vehicles in the world today, with the OECD’s International Transport Forum forecasting that the number of cars worldwide will reach 2.5 billion by 2050.