When, as a child in the 1980s, Chris Brownridge first admired his grandfather’s BMW saloon, the business of selling cars was a fairly straightforward exchange of cash for a vehicle. But when he joined the industry in the 1990s, it was in the middle of a wave of change. Readily available car finance suddenly meant the public could buy more expensive cars.
“It changed the type of car people bought,” says Brownridge, chief executive of BMW Group UK. Drivers could borrow to buy a pricier vehicle in the expectation that it would hold its value and could be sold on later.
