CONGRATULATIONS to the team at CarLease UK who have recently been named Best Broker at the VWFS broker conference recently. The VWFS Broker Award was voted for by VWFS retailers.
Director Mike King said that as a family business with its roots back in a VW-Audi dealership in the 1980s, “it was an absolute pleasure to reconnect with the VWFS brand”.
He added on receiving the VWFS Broker Award: “Being the ‘David’ amongst the ‘Goliaths’ it’s always our “do the right thing” approach to business that gets us the results in a highly competitive landscape. A huge thank you to the team at VWFS and the Retailer network – you add enormous value to our business.”
From VW-Audi dealer to leasing broker
Operating from premises in Haydock in Merseyside, King’s Garage was appointed a Volkswagen-Audi dealership in May 1974 (see left).
The dealership was eventually sold, but the King family wasn’t done with car retailing.
In 1988 it set up Kings in Leigh in the north-west but in what Mike King describes as a “lightbulb moment” in 2007, he realised that the contract hire and leasing industry was rapidly growing and that was the model for the future.
So the business was reinvented into a small owner-managed leasing proposition – Grange Court Leasing – with Mike’s son Rob joining the business in 2010. That year saw the brand changed to CarLease UK and VanLease UK.
Reinvention continued with the e-car lease brand and an Electric Vehicle Certificate for all EVs which captured key details of every electric car, culminating in winning Best Electric Vehicle Broker in the 2023 Broker News Awards.
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Ralph Morton is the leading journalist in the leasing broker sector and editor of Broker News, the website which provides information and news for BVRLA-registered leasing brokers. He also writes extensively on the fleet and leasing market in both the UK and Europe.
