SOANS – A FAMILY BUSINESS – The move to Sydenham

In the early and mid-60’s much thought was being given to the future development of Leamington, in terms of housing, industry, traffic and roads – rather like the recent Local Structure Plan. A.C.Lloyd acquired planning permission to develop Sydenham Farm, partially for housing, partially for industrial use. Stanleys Lane, a turning off Radford Road, renamed Sydenham Drive was to be extended as a dual carriageway Eastern bypass to Leamington, and St. Mary’s Road was to be extended across the Canal and linked through to Sydenham Drive. This was all exciting news for our company as it gave us the opportunity to relocate to a green field site (literally) and build a brand new state-of-the-art dealership too. National Benzole, a large petrol company, bought land at the junction of St. Marys Road and Sydenham Drive, (now the site of Parcel Force/Qpac) to build a large filling station to service traffic on the new by-pass, which we were to operate in conjunction with our new garage on the other side of the junction. However, things didn’t quite work out that way!

Although the Sydenham Farm development went ahead the proposed by-pass did not. National Benzole withdrew, and Soans were left to build on a large plot of land in an area of Leamington that few people would have had any reason to visit. There were no shops, cinemas or any such attractions out on the outskirts of the town.  Initially we built our workshops there – we dared not move car sales out there with hardly any passing traffic, so these were retained at the Dormer Place premises.  Much of our advertising in those days had to publicise the area, Sydenham, as much as to promote our business. We used the large split “S” bought from a special Shakespeare exhibition that had been held in Stratford, to identify where our site would be. The workshops were finally opened on Easter Monday March 27^th. 1967.  We were to take part in a Daily Mail publicity feature, – A Day in the Life of a Racing Driver – with Graham Hill, the World Champion racing driver. In an action-packed day, Hill was to fly his own aircraft from Elstree to Silverstone, where he was due to race, practise there, then fly by helicopter to Sydenham, landing alongside Sydenham Drive, open our workshops  with the large display of racing, sports & production cars, then take the helicopter back to Silverstone! He did all of that, and managed a successful day’s racing too. All went really well and we hoped to put Sydenham and Soans firmly on the map – only for the oil tanker Torrey Canyon to run aground off the Scilly Isles that weekend. For days the papers were filled with news of the disaster and the Racing Driver feature was never printed.

Business was tough for quite some time – a large workshop working well below its capacity was a heavy overhead to bear, but gradually work levels increased, staff numbers grew and Sydenham and our company became firmly established. Five years after opening the workshops, we developed the rest of the site.  In 1972 we moved the sales operations in to a brand new showroom with a 20,000 sq. ft. covered display area alongside.

In 1978 I became Managing Director with dad as Chairman of the company, 50 years after he and Grandad had opened in Leamington. There were regular promotional activities to draw customers to Sydenham. To mark our 50 years in Leamington in 1978, we processed down the Parade and out to Sydenham with a brass band, old cars & motorbikes, shire horses, and even a steam-roller. Life was simpler in those days with no requirement for Health and Safety Risk Assessments! The business continued to grow quite well. and we started to expand into other areas, – body & accident repairs, heavy goods, parts, self-drive car & van hire, and a driving school. We grew steadily, establishing a depot at Southam, breakdown & recovery work, and caravan repairs.

We set up a subsidiary company, Soans Vehicle Contracts, leasing all makes and types of vehicles to customers across the UK. We won an award from the Chairman of Ford of Europe for Outstanding Customer Service and were one of the first garages in Britain to attain the British Standard 5750 Quality Award for our total business. By the 1990s we employed over 160 staff and Soans the company was securely based.

But the motor industry was changing fast. By this time Ford were dealing with over 400 separate main dealers in the UK, giving them a far from efficient distribution chain. This was at a time when Ford products and processes were becoming increasingly standardised right across Europe. Quite logically Ford wished to rationalise distribution and control the selling of their vehicles by consolidating their sales network. That meant grouping dealers together under common ownership with an increased manufacturer involvement, a move which did not really fit in with the style and ethos of a family business, and after prolonged discussion and negotiation, it was agreed in 1996 that the Ryland Group would take over Soans. So ended our 85 year association with Ford.

Richard Soans

October 2014

Images from my private collection, edited by Allan Jennings.

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Read the Other Chapters:- The Early Years (1);   The Move to Leamington (2);
Life After Ford (4)