Thirty five members of Trusted Dealers will be given exclusive access to use the What Car site, as part of the deal. They’ll get WhatCar? ‘Approved Used’ marketing and branding materials and the vehicles will also appear in listings on whatcar.com.

So what are they doing?

Publishing director of What Car?, Andrew Golby, explained that they wanted to join forces with the cream of UK car dealers, the ones who focus on and excel at customer service and quality. The aim is to set a standard that all UK used car retailers should strive to meet.

Meanwhile, managing director of Trusted Dealers, Niel Addley, said that Trusted Dealers was pleased to have been selected as the partner in this initiative. For the last 18 months, the two companies have been cooperating and finding ways to create a common benchmark for all UK used vehicle retailers. They are confident that the collaboration will also mean wider opportunities for their members. In order to join, each dealer must sign a charter for every vehicle they market, called “10 Points of Difference”.

Trusted Dealers was initially set up at the start of 2011, as an alternative to the big, online classified sites. In the beginning, the franchise-only group sought to mainly target the larger dealer groups, but, in time, smaller operations were sought out. The idea was the brain child of dealership bosses, Vertu’s Robert Forrester, from Lookers’ and both Peter Jones and Ken Savage from Perrys. The company is currently run by Andrew Dyson and Neil Addley, both of whom are former Motors.co.uk executives.