Dealer produces small car reduced for church worker (8)
I believe the answer is:
merchant
'dealer' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'car reduced for church worker' is the wordplay.
'car' becomes 'merc' (short for Mercedes).
'reduced' means to remove the last letter.
'for' says to put letters next to each other.
'church worker' becomes 'chant' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'merc' with its final letter taken off is 'mer'.
'mer'+'chant'='MERCHANT'
'produces small' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for merchant that I've seen before include "Antonio, say" , "One who buys and sells" , "that's often associated with speed" , "One involved in wholesale trade" , "Antonio, for one" .)