The person behind Forecourt Insider
About the Author
I’m Richard Thorpe. I’ve spent virtually my whole adult working life around dealerships, customers, used cars, valuations, preparation, management and vehicle buying. Forecourt Insider is where I turn that experience into straight, practical advice.
This isn’t a corporate biography. It’s the story of how I found my way into the motor trade, what it’s taught me and why I finally decided to build something of my own.
01 · The beginning
How I found my way into the motor trade
I didn’t grow up assuming I’d work in the motor industry. At 18 I was working in a metal-plating factory, and a serious accident badly damaged my right hand and one of my fingers. The surgeons managed to save and reconstruct it, including pinning the bone, but the experience made one thing very clear: I didn’t want to go back to factory or warehouse-style work.
I returned to college and qualified in electrical engineering. While I was studying, I worked about 22 hours a week in an Orange mobile-phone shop selling phones and contracts. That was where I realised I genuinely enjoyed selling—and that I was pretty good at it. Even part-time, I’d often outsell people working there full-time.
Cars had already been part of my life for as long as I could remember. My dad owned some memorable cars over the years: V12 Jaguar XJSs, Lotuses, Porsches and Nissan 300ZXs. I’d watch him working on them, pass tools and gradually pick up an understanding of how mechanical things worked and how faults got found.
I loved cars, I enjoyed selling, and the thought became obvious: I’ll sell cars.
I started persistently contacting a SEAT dealership in Coventry about becoming a trainee sales executive. That went on for somewhere between six and twelve months. Eventually the general manager, Mike Jones, told me he admired my tenacity and said that if I called back in the new year, he’d create an opportunity for me.
I took him at his word. In January 1999, I called back. True to his word, Mike created the trainee position, and that was the beginning of my career in the motor trade.
02 · A wider view
From trainee sales exec to group buying
That first trainee period was one of the biggest learning curves of my career. Dealership culture in the late 1990s was far more formal: full suit, tie, top button done up, black shoes, clean shaven and a very structured sales process. I’m not saying those processes were inherently bad, but retailing was generally less customer-focused than good modern dealerships are today.
One lesson has stayed with me throughout: people buy from people. Professionalism matters, but so do genuine rapport and trust. When somebody feels comfortable with the person they’re dealing with, they’re more likely to look for reasons the car and the deal could be right rather than searching for reasons to walk away. That isn’t about manipulation; it’s about listening properly, being straight and making people comfortable enough to make a clear decision.
Over time I progressed through sales executive, sales controller and supervisory work, business manager, sales manager, general sales manager and wider general-management responsibilities. I ran a Volvo business and later a Honda business. Around five years ago, I moved into group used-car buying and vehicle acquisition.
It isn’t the list of job titles that matters. Each role widened my view. I’ve seen the customer-facing side, the figures behind the deal, the appraisal of the part exchange, what happens in preparation and the decisions that determine which cars a dealership should retail in the first place. I’ve now been with my current employer for more than 13 years, and I’m approaching three decades in the trade.
03 · Experience in context
What nearly three decades have taught me
Car buying has changed beyond recognition
When I started, Auto Trader still meant the printed magazine to most people. A photographer or rep would visit the dealership, photograph the stock and the cars would appear in print. Internet access existed, but it was primitive and usually involved dial-up. Dealers relied heavily on substantial physical valuation books such as Glass’s Guide and CAP Guide.
Used cars were much more commonly priced to a margin. A dealer might pay £10,000 for a car, decide it needed £2,000 across it and advertise it at around £12,000. There was far less live information to show whether that price was genuinely competitive.
Today, customers can compare specification, reviews, prices, finance, ownership information, videos, podcasts and comparable cars before they’ve even left home. Dealers have richer live data too. Good modern retailers increasingly price to the market, not simply by adding a target margin to what they paid.
Valuation is much more than a guide price
Management exposed me to profit performance, preparation spend, workshop and servicing costs, brakes, smart repair, bodywork, mechanical repairs, stock age and stock turn. When you’re valuing a part exchange and signing off what it needs before retail, you build a very practical sense of what things really cost to put right.
The questions become: What could I confidently retail this car from? What will it realistically cost to prepare? How desirable is it? How quickly should it sell? Is it the sort of car I’d want to retail at all? Personally, I’m cautious about cars with unresolved intermittent faults or significant unwanted odours; I may prefer to trade those rather than put them on my own forecourt. That’s my professional judgement, not a universal rule for every dealership.
Group buying brings all of that together
Buying cars at scale isn’t simply going out and finding stock. I’m weighing the live retail market, desirability, likely speed of sale, preparation, risk, competition, location, specification, condition, history, mileage and the achievable retail price.
A particularly strong, desirable car may justify paying above a standard guide benchmark because I’m more confident in the retail result and how quickly it should sell. A weaker opportunity may need to be bought below it. Figures such as 102% for a very strong car or 98–100% for a weaker one illustrate the principle; they aren’t universal policy.
The role can also include negotiating packages of 10, 20, 30 or 40 vehicles from large fleets or finance organisations. Within one package, individual cars may naturally land above or below the guide figure. The book value is useful, but it’s only one part of the decision.
04 · The reason for doing this
Why I created Forecourt Insider
One of my brothers is brilliant with IT and has a strong business mind. For years, he kept encouraging me to create something of my own. I wanted to, but I kept hesitating. Intricate website development, YouTube and online publishing weren’t things I felt naturally confident with. Underneath that was a more basic fear: what if I put everything into it and it didn’t work?
If Forecourt Insider becomes what I hope it can be, fantastic. If it doesn’t, at least I won’t look back years from now wondering what might have happened if I’d actually tried.
I want the site to be transparent, honest, practical and built with integrity. Trust has to be earned over time; I can’t simply declare that people should trust it. I don’t know everything either. Every day’s a school day, even after nearly three decades. I’ve probably forgotten more than the average Joe knows about certain parts of the trade—but there’s always more to learn.
Polish the platform. Never polish away the person.
I’ve watched plenty of car-advice content over the years, and some of it’s excellent. The amount of real dealer-side experience behind it varies. I’m not interested in attacking other creators, but Forecourt Insider should be different because it’s grounded in what I’ve actually seen and done.
I also can’t stand clickbait. I don’t want ridiculous thumbnails, manufactured outrage or “dealers don’t want you to know this” nonsense. The advice should be interesting because the content is useful.
05 · Straight answers
What I think people misunderstand about the motor trade
What do you think people misunderstand most about car dealers?
Probably how much margin people assume a dealer makes on each used car. The difference between a trade value and a retail asking price isn’t simply dealer profit.
Preparation is misunderstood too. If a car needs brakes, somebody may assume the dealer’s cost is just the price of the pads and discs. In a franchised business, sales and aftersales are normally separate departments with their own staff, overheads, budgets and targets. The internal cost isn’t necessarily the wholesale price of the physical parts.
A dealer becomes profitable over time through sensible purchasing, strong stock turn, controlled costs, trained and experienced staff, efficient processes and good management—not because every used car contains an enormous hidden margin.
Are car dealers out to rip people off?
I fundamentally disagree with that as a description of the vast majority of professional dealers. I’m not claiming every dealer is good; bad businesses and poor experiences obviously exist.
But a normal professional dealer doesn’t want an unhappy customer or a complaint. Even when a complaint eventually costs nothing in compensation or repair contribution, it consumes staff time, management time, administration, energy, goodwill and reputation. Time costs.
A good dealer wants the customer to be happy, the car to stay sold and the relationship not to become an avoidable problem. Forecourt Insider isn’t here to tell people how to beat a dealer. It’s here to explain what’s happening, why it’s happening and how to make a good decision without becoming suspicious of everybody in the building.
06 · Cars and people
What still keeps me interested
I left school with only three GCSEs at grade C or above. The motor trade gave me opportunities that many careers demanding extensive formal qualifications might not have done. I built a rewarding career through hard work, learning, experience and ability, and I’m genuinely grateful for that.
Every day can still be different. I’ve met some fantastic colleagues and customers, and I still enjoy going to work. I occasionally cover dealership management when a general manager or sales manager is away, and I still get a real buzz from helping the team get a deal across the line. Some people from my former Volvo team have become like a second family—the sort of people I think of affectionately as a work mum and a brother.
Outside the day job, I enjoy older and retro cars. I love taking something that’s been sitting unused and improving it sympathetically, both mechanically and cosmetically. “Barn find” gets used too loosely, but bringing a neglected older car back to the road feels like a rescue mission.
That’s what I enjoyed about the Mk2 Scirocco revival: seeing an older car revived, used and enjoyed again. I’m not pretending to be a professional restorer. It’s a practical extension of something I’ve loved since childhood.
07 · What comes next
Where I want Forecourt Insider to go
My three-to-five-year ambition isn’t mainly about a traffic number or a revenue target. I’d be bursting with pride if Forecourt Insider became a genuinely trusted place for practical car advice, real dealership insight, buying and selling guidance, ownership information and useful pro tips.
I’d love the YouTube channel to grow until Forecourt Insider becomes a familiar name. The dream is hearing somebody say, “Did you see the latest FI video?” or tell a friend, “Have a look at Forecourt Insider—that’s where I normally go when I need a straight answer about cars.”
Recommendation is the real measure. If people keep coming back because the advice feels honest, useful, transparent and grounded in genuine experience—and Forecourt Insider becomes a name they naturally recommend to friends, colleagues and family—that’d be absolutely fantabulous!