Wren & Barrow Motor Co.
A car on a quiet tree-lined road at the end of the day

Take it home for three days. Then decide.

Twenty-odd cars on a yard behind the old creamery in Ashbourne. Every one of them goes through our own workshop before it goes out front — and every one of them can sit on your drive for a long weekend before you part with a penny.

See what's on the yard How the three-day test works
In this week

A few of the cars out front

We keep the yard small deliberately — around twenty cars, all of them driven, checked and photographed by us. Prices include the twelve-month warranty and a fresh MOT.

Dark green estate car parked on the yard

The Green Estate

£6,450
  • 2016
  • 1.6 diesel
  • 74,300 miles
  • Manual

Two owners, both of them careful. Boot big enough for a whippet and a fortnight's shopping. Small dent on the tailgate we've priced in rather than filled.

On the yardAsk about it →
Small dark blue hatchback parked in a bay

The Little Blue One

£4,195
  • 2015
  • 1.2 petrol
  • 52,800 miles
  • Manual

A proper first car. Cheap to insure, cheap to tax, and it has survived eleven years of Derbyshire potholes without complaint.

ReservedSee similar →
Grey five-door hatchback

The Grey Five-Door

£7,250
  • 2017
  • 1.4 petrol
  • 48,900 miles
  • Manual

The sensible one. Came from a lady in Doveridge who used it for the school run and not much else, and it still smells faintly of the dealer.

On the yardAsk about it →

All the cars we have in →

Why we do it this way

Nobody makes a good decision in twenty minutes

The traditional test drive is a lap of the ring road with a stranger in the passenger seat watching you hunt for the indicator stalk. You learn almost nothing, and then you're asked to sign for five thousand pounds.

So in 2011 we stopped doing them. Now, if you like a car, you take it away. Three days, two hundred miles, our insurance. Put the child seat in. See if it fits the garage. Drive it to work in the rain. Let your dad have a poke around the engine bay and tell you what's wrong with it.

Roughly a third of cars come back and don't get bought. We'd far rather that than a phone call in week three.

How the three-day test works →

A set of car keys being handed over
What people say

Mostly they say it was easy

“I had the estate for the weekend, took it up to the in-laws in Buxton and back, and decided against it. Tom said that was fine and made me a coffee. Bought a different one off them six weeks later.”

Rachel, Wirksworth

“They found a fault on the car I'd already agreed to buy, rang me about it, and knocked the repair off instead of just doing it quietly. That's the whole review, really.”

Owen, Ashbourne

“First car for my daughter. Marianne spent forty minutes with her going through the service book and never once talked to me instead of her. Small thing. Not that small.”

Ffion, Belper
A road running through open country

“We sell about eleven cars a month. We could sell thirty if we stopped checking them properly, and we'd hate every one of them.”

Marianne Wren, who started the place in a rented lock-up in 2006

Pop in. The kettle's usually on.

No appointment needed, and nobody will follow you round the yard. If you'd rather we didn't come out at all, say so at the gate — we genuinely don't mind.

Where to find us

Opening hours

Monday
Closed — workshop day
Tue – Fri
9.00 – 18.00
Saturday
9.00 – 16.00
Sunday
10.00 – 14.00

Sturston Yard, Old Derby Road, Ashbourne, Derbyshire DE6 1AY
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