One of Australia's biggest car dealership groups, Suttons Motors, has ended its 50 year relationship with GMAC and switched its finance business to GE Money.Suttons operates 13 franchises, including Holden, Toyota, Subaru and Audi, through 17 dealerships and is ranked number five in the car sales market in Australia.The deal takes the number of dealers financed by GE Money to more than 1000. The financier claims market leadership in this niche.GE Money Motor Solutions managing director, Greg O'Callaghan, said some of the big banks do more car lending to consumers but when the total of dealership business finance, inventory finance and customer finance was added together GE was number one.O'Callaghan said the group's success was due, in part, to its independence. "Some of the finance groups have strong associations. We have several alliances with manufacturers to support their networks but we have no bias to any product."One of the trends in the market has been for dealers to grow their businesses by taking on multiple franchises. Different makers and styles of vehicles go in and out of fashion and dealers want to be diversified."In a multi-franchise environment the fact that we have no bias helps us."GE Money got into the local auto finance market in 1998 when it bought Nissan Finance. It built on that investment in 2002 when it bought Westpac's finance company business AGC, which had a substantial vehicle finance operation.In August last year GE Commercial Finance bought the fleet leasing and management company Custom Fleet from National Australia Bank and introduced a novated lease package to go into the product range.O'Callaghan said his group started offering novated leases to its dealers in March for new car purchases. He said dealers that do a lot of fleet work have taken to the product.The other new product offering this year has been a long-term loan. O'Callaghan said the most popular term for car finance was 60 months but with household debt levels running high there was demand for product that would keep repayments down. GE is offering an 84 month loan. O'Callaghan said the product has accounted for about three per cent of GE's auto loan sales so far this year. He expects it to grow to 10 per cent of the book over time.This has been another good year for the auto trade, with new car sales expected to exceed one million for the first time.O'Callaghan said a number of years of strong sales growth had created the impression that car dealers were making big profits on fat margins. "That is a misconception. The dealer's margin on a new car sale is 1.5 per cent and some will accept less than that in the hope they can make their money from after-sales service. "Dealers look for a strong offering from their finance providers. This is a very competitive market."