The drive has been created by agency Marketing Matters and printed by bezier's Poole operation.

The cards are designed to get people into dealer showrooms and are being sent to customers across the UK to celebrate their first five years of ownership.

They are sent out on the date that the car was purchased. Marketing Matters operation director Andy Legg, said the run of 9,000 A5 cards is being printed on bezier's Heidelberg Speedmaster 102.

"Next year we hope to have the budget in place to produce them digitally," he said. "We have used variable data and digital print on other DM campaigns."

"Proton has been doing these birthday cards for many years but the concept needed refreshing," added Marketing Matters senior account manager Gavin Braithwaite-Smith.

Story by Philip Chadwick