THE owner of two luxury car dealerships in Scotland said its financial performance for the full year had been ‘resilient’, despite Covid-19 cutting new vehicle sales by more than a quarter.

Cambria Automobiles, which bought the Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin dealerships of Edinburgh-based Leven Cars Group for £1.6 million in January, reported a 20 per cent fall in revenues to £524 million for the year to 31 August 2020 and said new vehicle sales to retail and trade customers were down 26.3%.

Stripping out the effects of acquisition and reorganisation costs, as well as accounting changes, underlying pre-tax profits fell 9.8% to £11.1m from £12.3m in 2019.

“The unprecedented and ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have put the group through the most challenging period in its history, though against this backdrop the business has demonstrated its resilience,” said Cambria chief executive Mark Lavery.

“At the time of writing, we are in the second enforced national lockdown and whilst our leaner, more flexible and more agile business is better equipped to deal with the challenges of a lockdown on our industry, it is still having a significant impact on our day to day trading.”

The Swindon-based group, which operates 29 dealerships across the UK representing brands including Jaguar, Bentley and Land Rover, said it took ‘decisive action’ to protect the business from the impact of the pandemic when the first lockdown in March required the closure of all non-essential retail businesses, including car showrooms.

This included putting 80% of Cambria’s 1,107 associates, including those in Scotland, on furlough through the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; freezing capital expenditure and the board agreeing salary cuts of between 20 to 50% during lockdown.

Looking ahead, Mr Lavery said Brexit and government CO2 emissions targets meant significant changes and challenges ahead for the industry.

“We are concerned about our future relationship with the EU post conclusion of the Brexit transition period on December 31st this year as this may lead to tariffs being in place for cars and parts being imported from Europe, which will drive up the price of those goods to UK consumers,” Mr Lavery said.

Cambria’s manufacturing partners continue to face the challenges of meeting compliance with the 2020 and 2021 CO2 emissions targets and a number are facing significant fines for failing to meet the targets set, he added. The UK government has announced that it will be banning the sale of internal combustion engine propelled vehicles from 2030 and hybrids from 2035.

“These decisions will drive a need for the automotive manufacturers to develop compliant vehicles at a significant rate and incur a huge amount of research and development spend in doing so, which will invariably drive up the price of vehicles for the general public,” Mr Lavery said. “Along with the National Franchised Dealer Association and other motor retail executives, I have lobbied hard to try to stop government ministers from making this unfortunate decision and instead urged them to consider a more technology agnostic and balanced approach to achieving net zero by 2050.

“Political factors appear to be dominating the decision-making process rather than a coherent plan to finding the right practical solutions for reducing carbon emissions towards net zero by 2050.”

In Scotland, the Scottish Government is aiming for a net zero society by 2045, following a ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2032.