Bringing together the two top 10 AM100 dealer groups Jardine Motors and Pendragon into one organisation can’t have been easy for their new owner.
But it has brought something crucial into focus – ensuring the workforce shares the new vision.
“The legacy is really important, but it’s in the past. Today we’re Lithia,” Neil Williamson, operations president of Lithia UK tells Automotive Management.
US-based Lithia and Driveway acquired Jardine, which Williamson was already leading, and then Pendragon in quick succession. The result, including a few other smaller bolt-on acquisitions, is a reshaped motor retail group that employs more than 7,000 people and generates nearly £7 billlion in revenue.
“When you think about where we’ve come from, we’re still quite a young business really,” he says.
“The job to do, really, was build something new. Obviously keep the heritage of those businesses, but build something new and different, a brand new business.”
Building one business
With the help of the workforce, of its US owners, and of its leadership strategy, the company identified what it stands for: Big, broad, and one business.
Being one business is crucially important, Williamson says, because Lithia UK wants everyone working to achieve its goals. Office politics, the friction of head office versus the dealerships, or inter-division conflicts are all examples of “wasted energy, negative energy in fact” that he says the group has no time for. Much work has been invested into the team at every level to create a culture of ideas sharing, mutual respect, camaraderie and supporting each other to drive success.
Williamson summarises: “If you want to work here, it’s all about collaboration.”
He has long believed in a ‘store first mentality’, even in his days running Mercedes-Benz Retail Group, which was where I first met Williamson some 15 years ago. Even then, he admitted that he spent most of his time coaching and driving people to ensure customers got great service and the dealerships were run well.
Now, in Annesley at Lithia UK’s freshly refurbished headquarters, the result of a £3.6 million investment to modernise Loxley House into a base for more than 500 colleagues working across central functions from accounting and HR to marketing and training, he’s telling me: “The stores are the front face of the business. They sell the cars, the parts, the hours, the finance.
“The people in this building, myself included, are here to make their lives easier. That’s what it’s like to work for Lithia. That didn’t happen on day one, but the time we’ve taken to get that to work has been super successful.”
That work also pays off when times get tough. The car markets always have their ups and downs, plus OEMs, employees and customers are affected by national and global politics and events, but the right company culture brings resilience with it.
“If we can deal with the bumps professionally, then our team knows we can get through this… If you’re team is not glued together in tough times they’ll fall apart, right?”
Teams aren’t necessarily required to conform to ‘a Lithia way of doing things’, however. Williamson says the company is happy to live with difference. If the evidence shows it is better to do something one way in one division and another way elsewhere, then innovation and empowerment will work in ways that benefit the customer.
Lithia’s thinking big
Despite its already substantial scale, Lithia UK is focused on growth. Williamson said the first job is delivering organic growth, ensuring its dealerships are performing well and capturing the sales opportunities around them. The group had a strong performance in 2025 and the trajectory remains positive, he says.
After that comes growth by acquisition. Last year it acquired AM100 group Hatfields, which boosted Lithia’s relationship with JLR, and it has since bought a number of dealerships from Read Motor Group, making Lithia a major partner for Hyundai.
Williamson says he is encouraged by his bosses at Lithia & Driveway in Oregon, USA, to “think big” and they have delegated a level of trust and authority to him and his leadership team that allows the UK business to thrive. It does befit a global organisation whose values comprise improve constantly, take personal ownership, earn customers for life, and have fun.
Thinking big has made Lithia & Driveway itself into a $36 billion (£27bn) stock market-listed business owning dealerships and other automotive businesses across the USA, the UK and Canada.
Williamson says Lithia UK’s strategy with its OEM partners is “to be big enough where we matter to them and they matter to us”.
Asked whether Lithia UK will rise to top the AM100, overtaking its rival Sytner which is also US owned, Williamson replies: “If it happens, it happens, but it’s not a target.” He insists there is no number in mind for revenue or overall number of dealerships. Acquisitions must be appropriate, where the OEM supports it, where the dealerships will grow and where the group has infrastructure to support it.
“Our aim is to be a successful business with recurring, growing income. That organic growth is massively important.”
Hatfields will stay
Its primary brands in the UK are Evans Halshaw and Stratstone but the group is not planning to rebrand the recently acquired Hatfields anytime soon. Hatfields is a brand long associated with JLR customers, and even in the USA Lithia uses numerous trading brands in its regions.
Beneath Williamson sit three managing directors: one for Evans Halshaw overseeing the mainstream brands, one for Stratstone Prestige overseeing the premium brands, and one for Stratstone Exotics overseeing the luxury brands.
And a recent rebrand to Driveway for the old Pendragon Vehicle Management leasing division has coincided with its relocation from Derby into Lithia’s Annesley head office.
Like many other AM100 groups, Lithia UK has been welcoming some of the new entrant brands. BYD and Omoda Jaecoo were the first new brands taken on, and these are being joined by Leapmotor, Chery and Geely.
Williamson says: “I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the UK consumers’ adoption of these Chinese brands. They’re great cars, at a good price, with great tech. They solve your transport needs, right? They just do.”
He’s able to insert the brands into locations which still have strong multi-brand used car sales and an aftersales parc for the previous brand, so it doesn’t feel the immediate pressure of a start-up site with zero local market.
On the UK new and used car markets, Williamson is pragmatic – all Lithia UK’s dealerships must do the best they can to be in the upper quartile in new car performance, no matter what the market conditions are. He concedes it is easier to say than to achieve, but the aspiration is commendable.
Used car sales are “within our gift”, he says, adding that the Evans Halshaw division typically sells two or three used cars for every one new. “We’re a bit of a powerhouse,” he adds. “Regardless of the market size and almost regardless of the movements in pricing, if we’re light enough on our feet and intelligent enough in the marketplace we can always make that work.”
Likewise, in aftersales, the business has thousands of cars with customers and a lot of workshops around the country, so he believes there is always more opportunity for increasing service, repair and warranty work.
From looking at how colleagues in the USA manage aftersales, his service teams are now adapting a more sales-orientated mindset, to make it simpler and easier for the customer.
Responding to an aftersales call with ‘yes, we’ll get you booked in’ rather than asking a raft of questions, is bringing benefits already in terms of additional bookings, albeit it is still work in progress.
“It’s good for us, good for the customer. That’s an example of how the US can inspire us, that thinking big thing.”