Over three quarters of dealers who responded to a poll by Automotivedata.co.uk about the upcoming EU referendum said they backed the ‘leave’ option.

Automotivedata.co.uk sent 17,000 professionals from 6,000 franchised dealers the question ‘Are you in Europe, out of Europe or, undecided.’

Of those that responded, 76% chose the ‘out’ option. ‘Undecided’ was the second largest group, with 13%, and just 11% said they were ‘in’.

Danny Lee, managing director of the company responsible for Automotivedata.co.uk, said: "Because our company own the AutomotiveData.co.uk office we are able to contact the key decision makers at all UK car dealerships 100%, at the press of a button.

"So, yesterday we sent all these professionals a simple question to click IN or OUT. Within minutes a huge number of direct replies (who may not have clicked the In/Out button) came back with clear comments of OUT and just a couple were for IN. So, I knew instantly how the official ‘online click results’ would pan out a day after."

These results differ somewhat from the results of a similar survey by Grant Thornton. In this case Grant Thornton asked automotive experts from across the industry, not just dealers, about their thoughts on the upcoming referendum, and found over half planned to vote to remain in the EU.