Elite Motors has been incorporated for over 50 years, starting as a small garage fixing cars trucksand motorcycles. It was purchased by Peter Fogg and Wally Young in the late 1940’s when they began to sell new and used motorcycles.

Through the fifties, the company had many bike franchises such as Norton, Triumph and BSA. The company grew to be one of the biggest car and motorcycle operations in the country, with the triumph franchise being one of the largest in Europe during the 1960/70’s and employing over 100 staff.

The company held various car franchises, such as Ford, Austin Morris during this period and in 1970 built a new showroom costing £250k. It would be interesting to compare the cost today!

During the 1970’s Elite Motors operated solely with the Austin Morris, Triumph and Rover franchises, later known as British Leyland but unfortunately, poor reliability and weak residual values made trading very difficult during the latter part of the decade.

In 1979 Elite Motors were one of the first Honda car dealerships, which soon grew into a franchise that could sell every vehicle it could acquire including the little Honda Acty van.

The current Managing Director, Alan Young. Alan continued to grow the Honda vehicle parc and the success led to him making the first expansion opportunity outside of Tooting.

He acquired an established dealership premises in Bromley Road and carried out an extensive refurbishment. It opened as a Honda dealership in November 1999 and has established itself over the last seven years with Gary Farr, Operations Director at the helm.

With the ever increasing costs of operating in London, Honda recognised the need for a long term strategy within the M25 to guarantee future representation and acquired a number of sites, some of which were already operated by Honda dealers.

One was secured in Wandsworth, close to the Tooting operation but due to it’s operational difficulties, for example situated on a Red Route and a one way system, very little customer parking and the need to rethink our operation at Tooting, we declined the offer to move.

This really signalled the end of our relationship with Honda at Tooting and we looked to a franchise replacement with similar cornerstones. Mazda has had a massive resurgence since 2000 when the distribution was taken over by the manufacturers, themselves. With superb reliability, strong residual values and sports heritage, they seemed to be the perfect replacement.

The success of the new franchise meant that we were able to take advantage of Mazda at Catford and now operate both dealerships with the Japanese brand. However, we are alsopleased to say that our Honda connections are not completely severed as we operate the Honda Aftersales franchise at Catford which enables us to continue servicing and repairing Honda vehicles. Our technicians receive the same training as other Honda dealers and fit genuine Honda parts. Warranty work continues to be authorised and repairs carried out.

In summary, we are a small family business with a long history, determined to supply and maintain vehicles in a friendly and professional environment.