The incredible story started with Reg Vardy who launched the business in 1923 under his own name, with a horse and cart delivering coal around the local towns. Reg then went on to purchase Stoneygate Petrol Station as an addition to his lorry fleet. In the 1950’s Reg Vardy moved into automotive retailing, being appointed Ford Retail Dealer for the North East of England.
Following the passing of Reg Vardy in 1976, his son Sir Peter Vardy took over the business having learned the trade from his father from the age of 15. Sir Peter quickly established himself as a leader in the UK automotive industry expanding the Reg Vardy brand from one dealership in the northeast of England to become one of Europe’s largest motor group’s with more than 100 dealerships representing 23 brands and employing circa 6,000 colleagues, achieving a £2.5bn turnover.
In 2006 Reg Vardy plc was sold to Pendragon, allowing Sir Peter Vardy time to focus on his philanthropy work. Following the sale, the Vardy Group of Companies was launched, comprising of Peter Vardy Ltd the automotive retailer led by his son Peter Vardy and the Vardy Property Group led by his other son Richard Vardy.
Launched in 2006, the Peter Vardy Group is a family run automotive business. In this time, we have grown from 1 to 1350 colleagues and our turnover has risen from zero to £600million. The retail business has grown to 15 physical dealerships, and we are proud to represent exceptional marques such Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW, MINI and CARZ our own brand used car supermarkets. Our success has been recognised across the industry with us winning multiple awards, including BMW European Dealer of the Year.
We have continued to diversify and grow through our digital and mobility businesses. CarMoney our online finance broker works with some of the biggest names in the industry and is going through an impressive growth period on target to be a £100m business by 2026, and have recently extended their reach globally with the opening of CarMoney Oceania in Perth Australia.
Our Mobility Division was created in 2020 in line with our company vision of “Mobility for Everyone”, which recognised the need for the industry to evolve to provide a range of options for the consumer, moving from traditional car ownership to sharing and rental offerings.
At Peter Vardy our purpose is “We Sell to Give” and we donate 10% of our group profits yearly to good causes via the Peter Vardy Foundation which was founded in 2009. In 2021 we officially launched our new charity Gen+ Leaders, which provides leadership and meta-skills training for all school children initially in Scotland via an interactive online learning platform. In 2022 we also became the principal partner for Scottish Rugby giving us unprecedented reach for our brand at a time of great success for Scottish Rugby.
