A couple of interesting facts: the average turnaround time for used car retailing in the UK is 45.5 days; that is the period from taking a vehicle into stock, preparing it for sale, advertising it and the new owner taking delivery. The HLG average is a mere 19.8 days – less than half the norm. Just recently, in post lockdown times, quite a few cars have found new owners in under 48 hours from arrival, a result of unprecedented demand.

This has to do with picking the right stock, relationships with workshop personell and suppliers and a reputation for being a safe bet for customers to spend their money wisely. Also interesting is that we do not, unlike the vast majority of dealers, pay any money to companies who direct traffic to our website – no search engines, no SEO payments, no pay per click or any of the enhancements which seem to underpin so many dealerships nowadays. This website is run organically and we’re proud of that. Existing customers and referrals from them account for the majority of our sales and other dealers are flabbergasted, considering that their monthly spend can be anywhere between £1,200 and £3,000 on one household name search engine alone!!

We’d rather spend that money on making sure our cars are properly prepared and conforming to the HLG ethos – matching tyres (same manufacturer) on all four corners, a minimum of 4mm tread across the full width (well in excess of the MoT requirement) and every car supplied with two keys. Colleagues in the trade tell us we’re bonkers doing these (and other things) which set us apart, but we have proved time and again that happy customers are loyal and tell others, so we’ll continue to do things our way. Twenty eight years in the present ownership and our customer base continues to grow.

(Our recently retired accountant calls it ‘The HLG Car Club,’ which is really rather nice! It absolutely describes how we want it to be).