7:24 am, October 15, 2026
Hilton Garage is a firm that is not afraid of doing things a little differently.
As something of a pioneer of AI in the motor trade, recent years have seen the firm enjoy growth at a rate that few other used car supermarkets have managed to achieve.
That is why we were thrilled when director George Manning invited Car Dealer up to pay a visit to the firm’s state-of-the-art new handover centre near Derby.
Recently bought from Aldi, for a fee in excess of £2m, Hilton Garage has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds transforming the premises into a state-of-the-art facility.
Located directly opposite the firm’s main site, buying the location was a no-brainer, although the deal certainly didn’t come easy.
‘We had to have a bit of a bidding war,’ Manning explained as we sat down to chat in the shiny new premises.
‘Aldi certainly drive a hard bargain and this site was worth more to us than it would be to any other firm just because of the location.
‘Thankfully, we were able to get it over the line.’
Looking around, it’s easy to forget that just a few short months ago, this impressive space was filled with industrial fridges and supermarket shelves.
The site boasts a glitzy showroom for customers to collect their cars, as well as a comfortable reception area while they wait.
At the rear, the firm has installed plush offices in a horseshoe shape to maximise space, which will eventually become home to a team of eight dedicated buyers, working full time to secure stock.
It’s clear from our tour that this must be the work of a top design team, something I put to Manning during our chat.
‘It started with a couple of architects, he explained. One recently did a Sytner showroom and quoted us between three and nine million pounds to get the look that we wanted.
‘We then quickly changed direction to ChatGPT, put in a few prompts about exactly what we wanted it to look like, how we wanted it to feel and we’ve basically planned the whole thing and developed it ourselves.’
The work was eventually completed using local firm AS Projects, who brought the building in under budget and ahead of schedule.
Including the purchase cost, the state-of-the-art facility came in at just under £3m.
‘In the end, AS Projects took an idea, and turned it into reality,’ said Manning. ‘The whole project was coordinated under budget and delivered a month ahead of schedule.
‘They took care of all the stressful parts, coordinating trade contractors, quality control. We’ve worked with a lot of established companies in the past, and nothing comes close to be honest.’
Continuing to grow
Walking around Hilton Garages various sites, all located along the same street, it is clear to see why the new handover centre was needed.
Throughout the day, there was less of a steady flow and more of a tidal wave of customers coming and going.
The firm is currently on track to sell 14,000 in this calendar year but has eyes on even bigger growth – eventually hoping to reach 3,000 cars every month.
As well as the Aldi site, the firm also last year bought a storage facility, allowing it to stock as many as 2,000 cars at a time.
Explaining the need for the new collection centre, Manning told Car Dealer: ‘We had a serious issue – and it’s a good issue to have – that we were selling too many cars.
‘At the backend of last year we bought some storage land that increased our stockholding and with that we were selling a lot more cars, which meant that our main site was getting quite constricted for space.
‘The main idea with this is that we want our customers to feel extremely special when they buy a car from us. We think it should feel just as exciting as when you get the keys to your first house.
‘The whole point of this site is to make the customer happier.’
Embracing AI
Car Dealer previously spoke to Manning as part of our AI Week coverage, when he explained how the technology had become central to the used car supermarket’s operations.
The firm has increasingly developed its own AI-powered tools, allowing it to create bespoke applications to improve efficiency across the business.
‘The point we’re at now is that there’s not a single part of the business that is not key driven by AI,’ he said.
‘A huge amount of the decision making now is not done by a human. We will have work plans for the day to the point where appointments, for example, are dished out by an AI orchestrator which will be monitoring which salesmen sells cars at a higher rate at which time of the day.
‘It will run our whole calendar for booking appointments so things don’t clash.
‘It starts right at the start – stock sourcing is done by AI, right through to every part of the business.’
The firm has also invested in a pair of UVeye scanners, which use cameras and AI to scan vehicles for damage and faults.
The machines can capture around 1,500 images in just five seconds, identifying everything from scratches and dents to tyre tread depths and undercarriage issues.
It is an approach which bosses say have streamlined the buying process, while also reducing awkward conversations with sellers.
A family affair
Hilton Garage’s cutting-edge approach is a world away from its humble beginnings in 1973, when George’s grandfather, David, bought the business as a petrol station.
More than five decades later, all three generations of the family – David, his son Richard and grandson George – remain involved in the firm.
David, now aged 80, still comes to work every day and was on great form during our visit last week, taking time to chat about used cars in his office, before popping over the road to admire the new handover centre.
For George, his grandfather’s influence remains central to the way the business operates.
‘My grandfather is someone who has worked really hard all his life and things have come naturally to him, he explained.
‘He started the business in 1973 when he was 21. He had a good job and then a petrol station came up for sale and he jumped on it.
‘It makes me life so much easier in that he has never taken any debt out, he’s never borrowed a penny.
‘He bought one car, sold it. Two cars, sold them and really ground at it for years and years and years until he gets to where we are today when he walks around the site, looks at all the cars and probably thinks “How has all this happened?”.
‘If you see a sea of cars in any used car supermarket you won’t see a single one where every one is owned by who’s selling it but that’s what what we have.
‘He’s 80 years of age and he’s still here every single day. He loves it and we’ve always built the business in that same way – the core values have never changed.
‘We’ve done a lot with technology, we’ve been very agile and evolved quickly but the whole ethos of being built around the customer has never changed and that comes from him.’
Investing in the future
The firm’s latest set of annual accounts, recently published via Companies House, show that Hilton Garage made a pre-tax profit of £2.68m in the 12 months to the end of May.
While that figure is down slightly on the previous year’s £3.99m, the period did include significant outlay on both the Aldi site and the storage land.
Overall, turnover rose from £160m to £175.14m with fixed assets going up in value from £7m to £10.07m.
Speaking to Car Dealer about the performance, Manning said: ‘Last year was a fantastic year for us. I think it was the second-best year we’ve had since Covid, which was a bit of a dummy year anyway.
‘I think a lot of other supermarkets were losing a large amount of money over the last couple of years.
‘Yes, we might be slightly down on the year before profit-wise, and that’s because we’ve invested a hell of a lot of money.
‘We bought two sites in that year, we’ve pumped a lot of money into the infrastructure of the business so that we can move forward.
‘As it stands, we’re on track to sell 14,000 cars this calendar year, which is basically every car that we advertise gets sold.’