Car dealership Vospers lost £500,000 last year as it faced a difficult new vehicle market and stopped selling a number of well-known brands. The family-owned business, which has showrooms at Threemilestone near Truro and at St Austell, also began selling Chinese brands and says it has returned to profitability so far in 2026.
Turnover rose to £303.5m from £268.9m in 2024. The company, which employs 600 people at 18 locations across the South West, made a pre-tax loss of £500,000 compared with a £1m profit the previous year. Net assets increased by £300,000 to £44.5m.
Writing in Vospers of Plymouth Ltd's newly published annual report for 2025, director Peter Vosper said: "The group has had another challenging year with a difficult new vehicle market and ongoing inflationary cost pressures."
He said the private retail new car market was 2.02 million cars, up 3.4% on 2024. He added: "Due to challenging profitability and changing consumer requirements we had a strategic review of our brand portfolio. As a result we made the difficult decision to terminate a number of the Stellantis brands."
That meant Vospers stopped selling Fiat, Alfa, Abarth, Jeep, Seat, Cupra and Mazda. It kept some aftersales agreements to support customers. Mr Vosper said: "We have incurred some one-off cost and trading losses in these brands as part of our reorganisation."
He added: "Positively there has been a significant growth of the Chinese brands that now reflect one in 10 car sales. As part of our strategic business plan we have developed a relationship with Omoda and Jaecoo in Exeter, Plymouth and Cornwall, which has assisted with some of the strategic changes that we have made to our brand portfolio."
Last year Vospers bought County Garage in Barnstaple, giving it a
Vospers Car Dealership in Cornwall Records £500k Loss