MILLIONS of pounds worth of vehicles once owned by stricken used car dealership Car Group have been sold to rival car supermarket company Concept Automotive Services. About 1,700 cars have changed hands for an undisclosed sum under the direction of Car Group's receiver KPMG.

The lease for the largest of two Cannock sites, part of the National Car Supermarket chain, at which many of the cars were based has also been sold to Concept. More than 100 jobs at Cannock have been secured by the sale, which brings the number of car supermarket sites owned by Concept to eight.

This year it expects to sell 14,000 cars and record a turnover of £100 million from its headquarters site in Surrey, and Manchester and Glasgow. The sale nearly completes the break-up of the Car Group chain. Its Welsh arm Empress Cars was sold to Rochdale-based Carcraft Group. In the UK, there were four National Car Supermarket sites, two in Cannock, one in Manchester and one in Northampton.

The lease for the Manchester site has been taken over by Dudley-based Motorworld, although the vehicles have been bought by Concept. Only the leasehold of the Northampton and the second, smaller Cannock site remain to be sold. Car Group collapsed into receivership with estimated £40 million debts in October after a desperate two-month search for extra funds failed following two profits warnings, primarily blamed on the slump in used car prices.