PEUGEOT has revealed its best UK profits for eight years following record sales last year which saw 181,564 cars sold of which 99,010 were bought by fleets. The record-breaking fleet performance - 55% of the Coventry-based manufacturer's UK registrations went to fleets - resulting in pre-tax profits of £52.9 million (1997: £52.5 million) on turnover of £2.39 billion (1997: £2.34 billion) last year.

In 1995 Peugeot reported pre-tax profits of £4.9 million on turnover of £1.79 billion. Pre-tax profits were at their highest since 1990, despite, according to Peugeot, the heavy costs of the UK manufacturing and commercial launch of the all-new 206 range, and despite increased spending due to the highly competitive market for new and used vehicles.

Peugeot UK managing director Dick Parham said: 'This was a tremendous all-round industrial and commercial performance by our UK workforce, particularly since we have deliberately absorbed all the high launch costs related to the introduction of the new 206 range at our Ryton plant in our 1998 figures.'