Wren & Barrow Motor Co.
Work going on in the workshop
Ashbourne, since 2006

Two names on the sign, three people in the building

We are not a group, we are not a franchise, and there is nobody upstairs setting us monthly targets. There is a yard, a workshop, a kettle and a dog.

How it started

A lock-up, six cars and a landline

Marianne Wren spent eleven years selling cars for somebody else, most of it being told to push finance at people who had walked in with cash. In 2006 she'd had enough of it, rented a lock-up off the Derby road with her redundancy money, and put six cars on the forecourt.

Tom Barrow was the mechanic she rang when something needed doing properly. By the second winter he was there more days than not, so in 2009 they stopped pretending and put his name on the sign. He still does most of the spannering, and he still won't let a car go out front until he's happy with it, which costs us money roughly once a fortnight.

We moved to Sturston Yard in 2011 — the old creamery yard, behind the hedge, five minutes out of town. It's not a location that gets passing trade, which is the point. People come because somebody told them to.

Twenty years on, we sell about eleven cars a month. That number hasn't really changed since 2014 and we're not trying to change it.

A car up on stands in the workshop
Along the way

Twenty years, abbreviated

  • 2006Six cars in a rented lock-up on the Derby road. One landline, no website.
  • 2009Tom's name goes on the sign. The first proper ramp arrives, second-hand, from a garage closing in Leek.
  • 2011We move to Sturston Yard and stop doing twenty-minute test drives. Several people tell us we're mad.
  • 2016Priya joins to do the handovers, and immediately writes down all the things we'd been keeping in our heads.
  • 2019Second ramp, and the roof over the wash bay that we'd promised ourselves for eight years.
  • 2023We start putting the workshop check sheet in the car, faults and all. Sales went up, which surprised us.
  • 2026Still eleven cars a month. Still shut on Mondays.
What we won't do

A short list, honoured

  • We don't sell paint protection, fabric protection, or anything else applied in a back room for £399
  • We don't take a commission on finance. We'll tell you what a broker would charge and you can decide.
  • We don't advertise a price and then discover an admin fee. The number on the card is the number.
  • We don't buy cars we can't get history for, however cheap they are at the auction
  • We don't ring people. If you left your number, it's so you can be told when a car comes in — nothing else.

None of this is a moral position, particularly. It's just that we live here, our children went to school here, and it is a small town.

Who you'll meet

All three of us, most days

Marianne Wren

Buys the cars

Derby and Nottingham auctions most weeks, and a very good memory for which cars were a mistake last time. If you want to know what something is really like to live with, ask her.

Tom Barrow

Workshop

Thirty-one years a mechanic, twelve of them here. Will happily explain what he's found and why it matters, at length, whether or not you asked.

Priya Shah

Handovers and paperwork

Joined in 2016 and quietly runs the place. Does the three-day agreements, the V5s, the warranty claims, and the calendar that stops us double-booking a car.

There is also Dougie, a lurcher of uncertain parentage, who sleeps in the office doorway and must be stepped over. He is not for sale, though he has been asked after twice.

The yard

A few pictures of the place