Born and raised in Blackburn, Chorley Group founder and chairman Andrew Turner launched his first enterprise into the automotive industry back in 1989, aged 29, trading in used cars from his home as the Bugle Inn Motor Co in the North-West region. Andy went on to open his first used car pitch in Parbold in 1990 and by 1993 had expanded the business to incorporate three sites across Lancashire. Andy, his sister Pauline Turner and Hilary Nicol had their sights set on developing a reliable brand of family business, devoted to the Lancashire community with friendly and trusted service.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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 theMG 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 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.
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 saw the launch of our Buy Online platform, online service booking and Parts/Accessories shop, making Chorley Group for the first time, 100% online! 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.
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.
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.
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.
We also welcomed the Citroen brand into our family with Blackburn and Bolton joining early March. Adam Turner Managing Director at Chorley Group said:
"The businesses in Bolton and Blackburn have served their communities well over their long history and we are excited to expand Chorley Group geographically into both towns.We hope to continue to develop on the great foundations that Chairman, Mike Holt, and his team have laid over the years and see the continued growth of the businesses" - Read about this here.
A couple of months later...We were proud to welcome our fifth new dealership to the group in the last 18 months, taking our Citroën representation to four dealerships.Group Managing Director, Adam Turner, said:
“We are thrilled to welcome the Blackpool Citroën team to the Chorley Group family, the Blackpool Citroën business is one we massively respect and it’s a pleasure to welcome 17 of their brilliant team to the group. This is another step in our successful North-West strategic growth plan & continues our strategy of expansion with our current dealer partners." - Read about this here.
2023 has been one of our biggest year yet full of refurbs, new brands and lots of awards.
Early in the year, we got a new addition to the family.... GWM ORA. We were pleased to finally let this 'Cat' out of the bag and announce our partnership with GWM ORA UK which will be based out of our Head Office in Chorley.
As one of the first few dealerships in the UK, we were so proud to lauch this brand and show all of our customers this
This year has been full of development with our dearlerships being refurbished. Preston Nissan, Chorley Nissan & Head Office, Blackpool Kia & Citroen, Burnley Nissan have all got a new look with more underway.
Along with the refurbishments and to help reduce our carbon emissions as a business we have installed solar pannels across our sites.
To end the year, our Citroen Skelmersdale dealership is moving to our Wigan dealership due to expansion, where it'll gel perfectly into the new development that is currently underway. We're excited about this move and know you'll love the new facilities that will be coming to you in the near future.