5:26 pm, January 19, 2026
Luxury supercar dealer Targa Florio Cars has suddenly closed leaving customers in the lurch over sale or return cars.
The serial award-winning business – based in Chichester – has shut down its website, its phone number is inoperable and its status on Google states ‘permanently closed’.
Car Dealer visited the site’s former dealership today at Walnut Farm Science Park and found it empty. The landlord is now advertising the premises for rent again online.
Targa Florio’s advertising page on Auto Trader has also been removed, but some historical listings remain on other advertising channels, including Pistonheads.
The business sold Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini models and specialised in prestige cars. A proportion of its stock is said to have been consigned to the business on a sale or return basis.
No official confirmation has been made that the business is in liquidation or that administrators have been appointed, however the warning signs do not look positive.
Car Dealer has contacted William Kirkham, the sole director, several times for comment but he has so far not responded.
CUSTOMER WOE
Targa Florio customers have taken to social media and forums to highlight their plight, including ‘Bradford Law’ who said they entrusted their car to the firm on a sale or return basis and have been left without the money, or their car.
Posting on TrustPilot, Law said the firm ‘sold my car’ and ‘kept the ££’.
They added: ‘I left a car in the care of Targa Florio Cars and William (Kirkham, director) who sold the car and ghosted me completely.’
Another customer ‘GME81’ appears to have had a similar issue posting on the same reviews website that they have not had a response from Targa Florio Cars after the firm sold their car in November.
The customer wrote: ‘I haven’t been able to get a response to an email since they told me my car was sold in November.
‘No response to emails on 6th, 12th, 22nd December and 4th January, no response Whatsapps on 23 and 26 December, and now their phone lines aren’t working. [I’m] getting worried they’ve gone out of business and still have my car!’
On other websites there are claims that outstanding warranty invoices have not been paid while customers on Facebook are attempting to track down Kirkham.
One said they had been left ‘high and dry’ by his ‘disappearance’.
In a post on the 911uk.com forum, one member claimed they had entrusted their Porsche to the business to sell and had ‘not heard from them since November’. All advertising activity appears to have ceased around the same time.
In September, another supercar dealer GVE London appointed administrators after collapsing owing customers thousands of pounds.
Companies House filings for Targa Florio show the business is still ‘active’ however its Confirmation Statement is ‘overdue’. The firm was incorporated in 2009.
Accounts for the business for the last three years have been filed in ‘abridged’ format, so they are light on detail.
However, an accountancy expert, who analysed the accounts for Car Dealer, said they reveal that the supercar dealer looked asset-rich on paper, but was ‘chronically short of cash’.
The expert said: ‘Across all three years, the balance sheet is dominated by stock.
‘In 2022 and 2023, more than £2.5m of the company’s value sat in cars, while cash in the bank was under £10,000 in both years. Even in 2024, it rose to only £44,764.’
Accounts for 2024 show the business ended the year with less working capital than in the two prior years and was becoming increasingly exposed to money owed to it and to trade creditors.
The accountancy expert added: ‘Without a profit and loss account, the filings cannot show whether the business was profitable or loss-making, but the balance sheets alone demonstrate a model that depended on constant turnover of expensive assets, with limited cash resilience and weakening financial headroom in the final year reported.’
Accounts for 2025 are due in September.
Targa Florio customers have suggested West Sussex Trading Standards should be contacted for comment by those affected by the sudden closure. Car Dealer has also contacted the department for comment.
Kirkham is the only director listed as active on Companies House. His wife, Joanne, resigned in 2010.
Targa Florio Cars was a regular nominee at the Car Dealer Magazine Used Car Awards and consistently received excellent reviews on Google and Auto Trader.
Previous wins included Best Use of Video in 2021 as well as securing the Used Car Website of the Year win in both 2018 and 2019.
