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The story so far...

Lifestyle Europe Ltd was formed following the management buyout of part of the Ford division of HMG Holdings Limited, a large national motor dealer group. The Lifestyle formation was completed in May 2001. Prior to this, the Chairman and Managing Director were the Operational Directors of the HMG Ford division for many years.

The Lifestyle brand was created in advance of the management buy out, to establish and promote a new initiative and contemporary image for today's market place; reflecting the forward thinking of the Directors and the diverse products of the business.

With a supportive management team the business took the local markets by storm. Heavyweight marketing programmes successfully heightened awareness in the immediate areas of Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

After three years of stable business, the Directors decided to expand and increase the coverage of the franchised territories by purchasing a dealership in Crawley, West Sussex. This provided a good geographical fit with the existing Horsham, Royal Tunbridge Wells and Redhill dealerships in the immediate area.

In the latter part of 2005, the Mazda franchise was added to our new facility in Crawley to complement the existing Ford franchise.

As the calendar year concluded, a new concept and trading name was introduced with the launch of CarZone, a used car supermarket based at Salfords Redhill, operating from new premises acquired by the company some months earlier.

In 2006 the company took another step forward by adding Subaru and Isuzu franchises to the firmly established Ford franchise in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Early in 2007, following lengthy negotiations, the Renault dealership in Royal Tunbridge Wells was added to the Lifestyle portfolio. Later in the year, to capitalize on the tremendous success of our Mazda franchise in Crawley, a second, purpose built, state of the art Mazda dealership opened in Horsham, followed shortly after by the addition of authorised Renault repair servicing and parts facilities at our Tonbridge dealership. A very busy year ended with the launch of our completely revamped and optimized Lifestyle Europe web site, encompassing all six franchises.

In February 2008 the Lifestyle Group were recognised as ‘Best Retail Group’ and ‘Retailer Of The Year 2008’ at The Automotive Industry Awards Event held in Birmingham. This tremendous achievement is the industry’s affirmation of the impact, progress and success of the company and its employees.

In September we successfully extended the Lifestyle family with the acquisition of Renault in Eastbourne, which further bolsters our presence as a dealer group and partners our already successful and well established Renault dealership in Tunbridge Wells.

Looking ahead we plan to further develop and enhance our customer database to facilitate SMS text messaging and a more targeted marketing strategy, there are some exciting developments just around the corner. The journey has only just begun...