CENTRAL Tyre is undergoing a transformation at its depots as it focuses on winning more fleet business. In a two-year programme, managing director Carlo Costa has steered the wholly-owned subsidiary of Pirelli away from a business focused on the truck industry to concentrate more on winning a share of the car repair and servicing market.

A fundamental restructuring has meant a major rationalisation programme, which has brought the total number of sites down to 83 from 119 as more of the truck tyre replacement business, marketed under the name TruckWeb, is centralised to vehicle depots. The sites have seen their business re-focussed on car tyre replacement and servicing operations under the Central Tyre banner, with the retail network expanded to the 83-site target this month from 36 depots in 1997.

The move will alter the balance of business from 80% of turn-over coming from trucks to a 50:50 split between income from trucks and cars. This, the company stresses, will be achieved through business growth rather than any scaling down of the truck business. Although the company does competes for fleet business - customers include White Arrow - it aims to further promote its services later this year through the launch of a fleet specific service called FleetWeb.