The Ford Family Deal scheme through which Ford brands help each other to make conquest sales to UK corporate customers is being rolled out in mainland European markets.

After Volvo UK reported incremental sales of nearly 2,400 cars and pending deals for 3,100 more which could be attributed directly to the scheme, senior fleet executives from Europe were brought to the UK four months ago 'to see how we developed the proposition and where we're at', said Andy Welton, manager fleet operations, Ford of Britain, whose team serves more than 100 corporate customers and 3,000 fleet operators.

He said: 'Using the UK experience as a template, they are now looking at its application in other European countries, and are in various stages of development.

'We are talking about every market in Europe, and if it makes sense, every market will expand on the UK model.

'The Ford Family Deal is now very much a European initiative. Whenever our people talk to major fleet customers, they talk about the Ford offering but also about the total group offering.

'They open the door for others. We have a very strong offering in the marketplace and we now have a robust strategy to present that offering as a totality to our customers.'

Welton added: 'We have not set targets in terms of sales figures. Our target is to continue to develop the Ford Family Deal for the benefit of customers in Europe.

Each market is different, but the rationale is that if we can replicate this scheme in other European markets, we can expect to consolidate the position of Ford and its other brands through incremental volume.'

The scheme emerged after Volvo became part of Ford in 1999 and was widened to embrace Jaguar and latterly Land-Rover. There are no plans to include Mazda because any substitution for Ford models would be self-defeating.