Eastwoods lead silverware charge

The stiffly contested annual award recognises overall dealer performance in sales, aftersales and customer satisfaction, and was presented to dealer principal Des Eastwood by Subaru UK managing director Chris Graham at the annual Subaru dealer conference in Birmingham (pictured).

“It’s a great honour. I’m delighted for my customers and staff that we have been singled out again, standards keep going up and the bar gets higher every year,” said Des Eastwood.

“There’s no doubt that having direct family involvement and a team with decades of Subaru experience are major factors in winning, and many, many loyal happy owners driving our great range of cars. My customers love their Subarus.

“They also cherish the personal service and genuine interest in their welfare that only a family run firm can deliver.

“It’s a ‘hands-on’ winning formula that we have no intention of changing.

“It’s been a whirlwind start to the year – we’ve just launched an all new Forester hybrid, and the first new XV Crossover hybrid arrives later this month to complete an exciting and innovative e-Boxer Subaru hybrid line-up,” continued Des.

“The all-new Subaru Forester e-BOXER won the Technology Award for its Driver Monitoring System at the 2020 ‘What Car?’ awards, and was named ‘2020 Best In Class’ by 4x4 Magazine. New more rigorous Euro NCAP crash testing hailed Subaru ‘Best In Class’ for safety, with all new Forester comprehensively outperforming all others - no other manufacturer surpassed Subaru in Euro NCAP testing in the whole of last year.

“Old adages that Swedish or German brands build safer or better cars have been comprehensively laid to rest by a host of independent awards for safety, reliability and capability. Backed by a five year/100,000 mile warranty and very high standard equipment levels delivering outstanding value for money, Subaru are set for a big year in 2020.”

Congratulating his dealer of the year, managing director Chris Graham said: “According to ‘What Car?’ an astonishing 72% of drivers admit to being distracted when behind the wheel, making driver monitoring systems an increasingly important piece of in-car technology. Subaru’s new Driver Monitoring System is fitted as standard on all Forester e-BOXER models.

“It uses facial recognition technology to detect if the driver’s gaze has shifted away from the road and alerts vehicle occupants if this occurs. ‘What Car?’ hailed it as ‘the most advanced of its kind’.

“In testing it proved to be more accurate at identifying when concentration was lost compared to other manufacturer systems.

“In addition, ‘What Car?’ also noted that the use of facial recognition software to set things like seating position, door mirror angles and even air conditioning to the driver’s preference is a real bonus.

“The ‘What Car?’ Technology Award is the third notable accolade for all-new Forester since it launched just a matter of a few weeks ago.”