DAEWOO is aiming to quadruple its sales to business users next year with the launch of three new models. The Lanos, Nubira and Leganza go on sale in the UK on September 11, and represent an astonishing feat of engineering, passing from blank drawing board to production in just 30 months.

These are the first Daewoo designed and developed cars, taking over from the General Motors' technology of the Nexia and Espero, which themselves will remain on sale until availability ceases towards the end of this year. The new cars pick up where their predecessors left off, offering high specification allied to free servicing, warranties and breakdown and recovery for three years and 60,000 miles.

The South Korean manufacturer expects to sell around 4,000 of the new contenders into the genuine fleet market in 1998. Total sales for the year are forecast to rise by 25%, up to 32,000 units, as Daewoo aims to push beyond the 1% market share achieved by its existing models in a remarkably short space of time.

Stewart Wright, Daewoo's fleet and special sales manager, said: 'We are targeting areas such as the public sector and contract hire and leasing companies, but generally with Daewoo's peace of mind package the people we are really going to get to grips with are small companies that do not have a fleet manager, where the Daewoo system can take over.'