Virgin Cars Ltd was an Internet automobile retailer started by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and co-founded by Ian Lancaster in May 2000 as part of the Virgin brand of companies. The speed at which the company was launched was perhaps the most startling aspect, going from drawing board to fully fledged company with logistics, purchase, finance, admin and web-based sales operations all being set up between December 1999 and May 2000 using Logica, the London-based IT services company.
Branson predicted the company would sell 24,000 cars in the first year with a £300m turnover. By October 2000, the company had sold over 2,000 cars, generating £30 million.
In 2001, the company started a subsidiary Virgin Bikes. The company only managed to sell 12,000 cars in total by 2003. Branson opened Virgin Cars' first showroom in Salford, Manchester in May 2003. It was located at the end of the M602 motorway near the A6 / A57.
The company stopped all operations and trading on 22 December 2005. The building which it occupied was stripped of all branding, and in 2008 the site became the new home of the Robins and Day Manchester Peugeot Dealership.
Famous quotes containing the words virgin and/or cars:
“I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractised infancy.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)