Channel 4′s 4Car to close

Car website 4Car is to close at the end of the year.

Despite the British love of cars, there really aren’t a huge number of car web sites that make an impact. And certainly not car websites that aren’t linked to either classified ads or existing car magazines. Top of the heap in the UK is Autotrader simply because of its huge number of cars for sale. The likes of Auto Express, Autocar and Car Magazine do OK, but they are an online version of the print publication and not web creations. Probably the closest to a web creation that has high visitor numbers is Pistonheads, which does well in big part because of its classifieds and its forum.

Channel 4′s 4Car also did well as an online creation. But it’s been a hard year for the car business this year and manufacturers are spending less. Which cuts revenue and makes it difficult to pay bills and justify continuing. So it is not a huge surprise that Channel 4 has pulled the plug on 4Car – their online car site – which will cease to be at the end of December – but it is a shame. Started 10 years ago it has grown to see over 1 million visitors a month. But that’s not enough for Channel 4 to continue with 4Car, so they will close on 31st December.

4Car editor Tim Bowdler said:

“This is a sad situation. 4Car started in 1999 and for 10 years went from strength to strength, becoming one of the key motoring sites in the UK.

From small beginnings it grew in popularity as a support site for the Channel 4′s motoring programme, Driven. When the television show stopped in 2003 4Car continued as a standalone site attracting almost 1 million unique users, and that is a testament to the loyalty of our readers.

We believe we provided a healthy mix of quality information for car buyers as well as entertainment in our features and video output, but we were unable to fight the downturn as car manufacturers reduced advertising budgets. It became clear this year that the business case for continuing 4Car could not be justified.”

We wish Tim and staff good luck for the future and commiserations that all their hard work has ended like this.

Cars UK has thankfully done better this year and we’re seeing traffic of around 250k and growing around 20% a month. The New Year will see lots more Car Reviews as we expand on our core car news, so if lost and lonely 4Car readers are looking for somewhere to visit they could do a lot worse than stop by here.

By Cars UK