WOMEN at the top in the retail sector of the motor industry are a rarity. You can count on two hands the number of females who own franchised dealerships in Britain. And general managers in skirts are few and far between.

Which is why the fact that two top women big-wheels operating independently within a couple of hundred yards from one another in Clifton Moor, York, is a gaspworthy coincidence.

But is it a coincidence that those near-neighbours Emily Bromage, managing director of Layerthorpe Ltd with her Audi and Volkswagen dealerships in York and Hull, and Nina Douglas, the only female general manager within the Dixon Motors group, are both brilliant at their jobs?

And if not - then why are there not more women among the 600,000 employees in an industry geared to national sales statistics which show that nearly 40 per cent of all buyers are females - with most of the more than 60 per cent male buyers deferring to woman anyway?

If the feminine touch means even fractionally expanding sales in Britain, already worth a staggering £65 billion, then surely macho tradition should give way to sound ledger book logic?

The extent of the problem of this gender imbalance at the steering end of the industry is difficult to establish.

Neither the British Motor Industry Federation nor the Society of Motor Manufacturers were able to produce national statistics showing exactly how few women were at the top as opposed to men, although the problem was conceded.

It's a problem indeed if you consider the high calibre of the two women who, incidentally, have never met but who have both come to the same conclusions about why she-power in their industry is conspicuous by its absence...