Automotive consultancy Network Automotive claims that larger manufacturers – especially prestige brands – already exploit the lucrative sector but there is still room for other brands.

"If you type 'tax-free fleet sales' into Google, you can see that a number of prestige manufacturers take this kind of activity pretty seriously from the space it is given on their web sites,” said Network Automotive managing director Colin Bruder.

"Smaller manufacturers and their dealers often have the product to exploit this market but not the expertise and it something that they could profit from."

Bruder added that the administration, taxation and legislation surrounding tax-free sales was relatively simple, and that most of the additional knowledge required was marketing based and available from specialist advisors.

“Most tax-free sales are made to British armed forces serving abroad while diplomatic sales are made to UK and overseas diplomats.

“Our experience is that manufacturers in virtually all sectors of the market can make worthwhile sales in these sectors. It is a matter of putting a structured sales and marketing plan together and pursuing it."