History of the Company
Staff
Location

The German Motor Co began trading in  November 1983 from it's present address. The workshops were originally built as a car showroom by the prestigious motor engineers S.T. Robbins in 1929 . Robbins later acquired further premises on the Upper Richmond Road where from 1976 they concentrated on selling Rolls Royce and Bentley cars.

Our workshops were leased to the British Leyland dealer, Tanner Brothers Ltd, who at one time occupied most of the top end of Fulham Road where they had a number of showrooms, parts shop and a fuel station. Due to the growth of the company and the thriving market selling Mini's, Austin Morris 1100's  Marina's and Maxi's etc, they required further workshops. As the British Leyland  market declined due to the constant strikes and poor finishing quality of their cars, Tanners were forced to shrink their workforce and in 1982 a number of the staff were transferred to Tanford Motor Services who traded only from this site.

Unfortunately, trading conditions were not kind to Tanford's and even diversifying into new lines such as fitting radio cassettes, burglar alarms, seat belts, baby seats, cruise control and rear fog lights (most were accessories at this time)  they were forced to close early in 1983.

At this time, a group of five men, who had all previously worked together at Jack Barclay Ltd - the main London Rolls Royce distributor - were now working at The German Car Centre Ltd in Battersea.  Due to a number of reasons, but mainly the owner's determination to fly his own helicopter, the five of us found ourselves out of work.

One of us learnt about the empty workshops in Woodlands Way and with the help and advise of a private backer - who still owns the company today, we set about forming The German Motor Company. To date there remains only two of the original five members of staff - Jeff left in 1987 due to moving home. Colin left in 1992 to start his own panel beating business and Vic left in 1996 due to health reasons. We still keep in touch occasionally, much the same as we do with most other people who have worked for the company over the years.