Chorley Group History

Travel back in time and see how Chorley Group grew from humble beginnings to an award-winning multi-franchise family business.

Travel back in time and see how Chorley Group grew from humble beginnings to an award-winning multi-franchise family business. Our story starts in Blackburn, Lancashire back in 1960 - when our Founder and Chairman Andrew Turner was born.

1960

Humble Beginnings

Born and raised in Blackburn, Lancashire, Andrew Turner lives with his seven siblings in a tiny flat above his parents greengrocer store.

1981-1989

Bugle Motor Inn Company

Andrew starts his career in the automotive industry, working as a cars salesman in Newton-le-Willows. By 1989, Andrew launches his first used car enterprise from his home, an old coaching inn dating back to 1767 called 'Bugle Inn'. Bugle Inn Motor Company sells it's first car at auction for £510.

1990-1993

First used car pitch opens

Andrew went on to open his first used car pitch in Parbold in 1990, opening with eight vehicles for sell. A couple of years later, Andrew had expanded the business to incorporate three sites across Lancashire.

1994

Chorley Nissan

In 1994, Andy took on his first new car franchise and established Chorley Nissan on Ackhurst Road with Nissan quickly realising they had a success on their hands. Setting their newest franchisee a first half year target of selling 89 units, in their first full year, Chorley Nissan sold 1,000 units. In less than four years, Chorley Nissan rapidly became the largest volume, single Nissan dealer in the United Kingdom.

1999 - 2006

Nissan Franchise Expansion

Following the success of the Chorley Nissan dealership, Andy began acquiring other Nissan sites across the North-West, starting with the launch of Chorley Nissan Preston dealership at Strand Road in 1999. With more than one dealership under his belt, a purpose built Head Office facility was constructed at the existing site in Chorley. This ushered in a new age of growth and expansion for Chorley Nissan - 2001 saw the Group acquire an existing Nissan dealer in Wigan, in 2004 Andy bought his 4th dealership in Burnley and finally the 5th dealership on Amy Johnson Way in Blackpool was purchased in 2006.

2009

Kia and Hyundai join the Group

The Nissan Blackpool site created some unique opportunities for the Group in the late noughties, The Group was able to expand into new automotive franchises - the South Korean car brand Kia Motors and Hyundai were launched next door to the Nissan Blackpool dealership. Further developments at the site followed, with the Blackpool site becoming the first multi-franchise site in the Group's history.

2010-2014

The Chorley Group brand grows & 25th anniversary celebration

In 2010 Andrew's son Adam Turner begins working full time at Chorley Group in the role of Business Development Manager. With multiple new car franchises across 5 dealership sites, Chorley Group begins developing it's own unique marketing brand. By 2014 the group began to make huge investments into Group infrastructure and created new jobs for emerging roles in this industry including in-house marketing, digital roles and electric vehicle specialists. Chorley Group celebrates a major milestone in the company's history, with a surprise 25th anniversary party for Andy at the Chorley branch in 2014.

2015

Site growth

2015 sees big changes to the Group, with Adam Turner stepping into the role of Sales Director, Stacey Turner joining as the Group's HR and Legal Director and huge investing into upgrading all our facilities. Nissan Preston is the first of our dealerships to receive the latest showroom make-up.

2015

Charity Cycle for Chorley Mencap

2015 is also a big year for Andy, who took on his greatest challenge yet - a 1,100km (683 miles) cycle in the aid of Chorley Mencap, a charity that supports adults with learning difficulties. Andy and his brother completed a 10 day challenge cycling from Basel, Switzerland along the River Rhine to Rotterdam, Netherlands and manged to raise over £8,000.

2016-2017

MG joins the group & Chorley win Global Award

The Group continues it's ambitious expansion plans by acquiring a 1.2 acre site opposite the Chorley Nissan dealerships on Foxhole Road and in 2017 acquires the MG Motors franchise at it's Chorley and Burnley dealerships. 2016 and 2017 saw the Group win numerous awards including the Red Rose Awards 'Customer Service' award, Nissan Global Award in both 2016 and 2017, AM Award ' Best Dealership to Work For' award and the Nissan National EV Award at the Preston dealerships in 2016.

2018

Chorley Group goes digital!

2018 saw some big changes to the way the Group interacts with our customers - we fully committed getting Chorley Group online and matching the quality of the online experience for a dealership visit. Each dealership hires an on-site media operator to photo and advertise our used car stock online, a 7 days a week online Digital Response Team becomes available to handle in and out of hour enquires and the in-house marketing team begin filming producing unique video and media content to share online with customers. By the end of the year, we start offering the abilities to leave deposit and reserve cars online.

2019

Andy takes on the climb of his life

If you were impressed with Andy's 10 day cycle challenge in 2015, our Chairman decided to do one better. Our 59 year old Chairman managed to raise a staggering £52,000 with his Everest Base Camp challenge. Training harder than anything else in his life to date, Andrew makes the 17,500 feet climb to raise money and awareness for one of his passion projects, Chorley Youth Zone - a purpose-built facility for the borough’s young people aged 8 – 19, and up to 25 for those with disabilities.

2019

First Annual Award ceremony

The start of the year also saw our first Chorley Group Annual Awards - where we recognise and celebrate the hard work all our team of 250+ employees - with cash prizes and trophies up for grabs.

2020

Vauxhall 06 join Chorley Group

As we are all well aware, 2020 didn't take the path that we were all hoping to walk down due to the COVID-19 pandemic that took the world by storm. Although times were tough for the Chorley Group business, we managed to secure our takeover of 06 Vauxhall & Mitsubishi, two dealerships that are based in Ormskirk (Vauxhall) and Skelmersdale (Mitsubishi), which saw our franchises grow from 4 (Nissan, MG, Kia, Hyundai), to 6 with the two branches joining the family in the middle of 2020.

2021

Is this the UK's favourite pick-up?

In 2021, we were happy to announce that a long-standing manufacturer and producer of amazing pick-up vehicles, Isuzu, joined our family business and will be headed out of our head office building in Chorley on Ackhurst Road.

2022

New Chorley MG showroom

Early 2022, We moved into our state of the art new MG showroom in Chorley. The new showroom is a testament to the monumental growth of the MG brand in the UK over the last few years and a pioneer in the market for affordable hybrid and electric vehicles.

2022

Citroen ioins the Group

We also welcomed the Citroen brand into our family with Blackburn and Bolton joining early March.

2023

A Year of Growth with GWM ORA and New Refurbs

2023 has been one of our biggest year yet full of refurbs, new brands and lots of awards. GWM ORA joins our Chorley site, and Preston Nissan, Chorley Nissan & Head Office, Blackpool Kia & Citroen, Burnley Nissan all get a refurb.