10:30 am, April 8, 2024
A used car dealer has explained how he went from working for an investment bank in Canary Wharf to being the boss of his very own family-run used car dealership.
Sohib Ghafouri is a civil engineer by trade and by the time the pandemic hit in 2020, he was working for banking giant JP Morgan in the heart of London’s financial district.
However, the 32-year-old had a long-standing passion for cars which was always bubbling away under the surface.
After being instructed to work from home during the first national lockdown, Ghafouri registered with Auto Trader and began buying and selling cars in a more serious way.
It was a move which saw him well and truly catch the motor trade bug and within six months of returning to the office, he had quit his job to commit fully to selling used cars.
He is now heading up the family-run Infinity Motors, which stocks around 140 used cars from a state-of-the-art site in Swindon, Wilts.
The business specialises in German vehicles and Ghafouri says his only regret is not changing careers sooner.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Car Dealer Podcast, sponsored by JATO, he told hosts Jon Reay and James Batchelor: ‘My background is actually in construction and I’m a civil engineer by profession. I was a civil engineer turned project manager but cars has always been my passion.
‘I’ve always been in and out of buying and selling – wheeler dealing as they call it – all the way from university up until about three years ago when I went full-time.
‘It started off as a hobby, you buy your nice cars and then you drive them for a few months to a year and then sell on, and then what happened was Covid hit.
‘At the time I was still with my previous employer – JP Morgan in Canary Wharf – and they said everyone had to work from home. Initially it was for a defined period, I think of around three or four months, but as we got to the end of that they said “actually, it seems like this is not going to go away any time soon.”
‘That’s when I signed a contract with Auto Trader. I think it was about six cars or so and it just kicked off from there really.’
He added: ‘It was good for me to get full, hands-on experience of running my own mini dealership and I saw the benefits of it, the economics behind it and how it could work.
‘It was a short stint that only carried on for about four months and then they called us back into the office as things started to pick up again at work but that was something that I looked upon very fondly.
‘I thought “that’s my passion and I’m quite interested in cars” and looked at it as a hobby but then I thought “maybe we could turn this into a venture”.
‘I went back to work for about six or seven months and that’s when I decided to make a decision to give it a go, start up, go full-time and see where it goes.
‘If it fails, I’ve got my experience in my professional work, I can go back to that. The offer was always there from my previous employer.
‘Since then, I’ve not looked back and in some ways I regret not doing it sooner. It’s been absolutely great.’
The Car Dealer Podcast sees an industry guest join our hosts to discuss the motor trade’s biggest headlines of every week.
Among the topics up for discussion in the latest episode were Tom Hartley’s underpants, AutoNation eyeing Inchcape and EV incentives.
You can read all the stories discussed in this week’s podcast here:
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Thieves steal luxury supercar dealer’s monogrammed pants in raid at health spa
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US dealer AutoNation eyeing move to pounce on Inchcape’s UK dealerships
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SMMT chief urges swift action and ambitious policies to increase EV adoption
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Saxton 4×4’s pre-tax profit slides by almost 50% despite turnover rising
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Used car market entering second quarter with momentum as new records set, says Auto Trader
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Motorpoint expecting to see full-year loss ‘at favourable end of expectations’
- Aston Martin expands ultra-luxury retail strategy with showroom at five-star Tokyo hotel
You can listen to all episodes of the Car Dealer Podcast on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
