MT Dealer Insight: H.R. Owen Bentley Hatfield

H.R. Owen has opened its new multi-franchise dealership in Hatfield, launching the Bentley showroom and looking to create a destination for luxury car buyers.

H.R. Owen first announced its plans for a multi-franchise site in Hatfield in 2021, bringing together several of its luxury and high-performance brands under one roof. Now, in 2023 the dealership is beginning to open, and will eventually house Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati.

For now, H.R. Owen has officially opened the Bentley showroom. The new flagship site is the first in the UK to feature Bentley’s new design concept. Bentley Hatfield joins other H.R. Owen-operated Bentley showrooms in Surrey and Mayfair, London.

Motor Trader spoke with John Stone, brand director for H.R. Owen Bentley on the new site and its features, sustainability in motor retail, and the challenges facing traditionally city based dealers.

The new site has been an idea long in the making. “I stood in the field probably four and a half years ago. There was nothing here,” Stone began. The new multi-million-pound automotive retail complex is the culmination of Berjaya Group founder, Vincent Tan’s, vision to create the “ultimate luxury car facility and experience”.

Stone added: “I’ve been here full time for about 15 months. We started with temporary structures on site for Bentley and Lamborghini and then Ferrari and Maserati joined the party and here we are today. It’s been a long, engaging four and a half years, so it’s great to see it finally in its splendour.”

And why Hatfield? H.R. Owen is well known for its central London dealerships, such as the John Barclay Bentley site in Mayfair. On this, Stone said: “Hatfield was an open point. We needed some expansion and removal of some of our aftersales businesses in Wembley because it was becoming too congested, and the customer journey was a problem. Our vision was more of a consolidation of our current portfolio, which would then allow us to expand. It’s to future proof our business. We’ve got a Central London business, but with legislation changing that might not remain possible. Now with the new Hatfield site we’ve got plenty of space that over the coming months and years we will make use of with other partners.”

And a change in customer behaviour has, Stone said, given H.R. Owen the confidence to move outside the M25. He said: “If you go back 10-15 years, if you went to see a Bentley and you would want to drive out the doors of Jack Barclay in Mayfair. It was the done thing. But these days, not so much. It’s very difficult to drive in London. When you have any car serviced, you don’t want to drive it in and wait for it. You want it to be collected and delivered. So, all our costs were adding up for storage and collection/delivery, as well as congestion charging. We think that if we can give people reasons to come to a site and make it a lot more engaging, then we can make a saving in other areas of our business. And that’s what we’re looking to achieve at Hatfield.

“We welcome visitors to the site, you don’t have to be a customer. There are some new initiatives and new spaces that will open as time unfolds. We have private dining, we have rooftop bar areas, and we have lots to see. We didn’t expect to open the doors and have every luxury car buyer come to us in the first month. This is a longer more detailed plan that we need to undertake with our customers and prospective customers. You will see some one-off vehicles that aren’t necessarily mentioned in our portfolio of brands. Today, I’d say we have three cars that are the only ones in existence. It’s ever changing.”

Planning ahead

The Bentley dealership at Hatfield is the first in the UK to feature Bentley’s new design concept. H.R. Owen was keen to get ahead of the game here to future proof the site. Stone said: “We had the desire to do something different, because we were investing heavily we wanted to invest once and not need to update in two- or three-years’ time. Bentley were the very receptive to that. There are a lot more modern design cues, it is very AV centric which is notable when you walk in. We have put in a Mulliner commissioning studio. Increasingly people are spending a lot more on options and personalisation beyond what we’ve been used to over the last 12 or 13 years. Rather than just having piping done in red or your initials on the headrest, you can really personalise the cars a lot more.

“So, we have a full studio with a 100-inch screen in there and we can speak to the factory designers directly. We’ve got samples of pretty much everything to demonstrate the endless possibilities of what you can do. And that’s a private space and it is luxurious and well designed. It’s a part of the start of the Bentley journey and that’s what this environment is for. We’ve been pretty good at using Mulliner for some really extended specifications and unique collections. It’s a very different space to what customers have been used to.”

And sustainability has also been a key consideration at the new dealerships. Bentley itself has its Beyond100 strategy that aims for the brand to be end-to-end carbon neutral by 2030. The manufacturer also confirmed that it will only offer BEV and PHEV from 2026, and BEV only from 2030.

On this, Stone added: “We have some hybrid models with the Bentayger and Spur as plug in hybrids. And we are ready for the next step. Part of our standards are to have the right vehicle charging and have the right technical knowledge to repair and maintain. As we step forward, we are a Carbon Neutral Network, for which we work very closely with Bentley and certainly in the design of this space. We wanted to be as economical as we could be. There are lots of energy saving and green initiatives that we have undertaken on site so that we can meet the targets and deliver a more sustainable business in partnership with Bentley.

“There are some very small practices such as having no plastic bottles of water, everything’s glass and we reuse these glass bottles. We put in energy saving lighting and the lights will turn off if there’s no action. Aircon is killed overnight and comes back on when the dealership opens. There are bigger initiatives such as solar panels and some water recycling, and every part of the business is as energy efficient as it can be, even in the workshops the lights will turn off due to inactivity and the heating temperatures are well controlled. Our waste disposal is another mission. We have giant compactors on site and we crush our waste and are able to sell a lot of it. All of the team are building their understanding of how we can look after our environment. We have to keep an eye on cost and work towards a profit but we are leading with environmental initiatives. We have our energy supplied by renewable energy companies as well and they check what we’re doing and make sure that any improvements that can be made are.”

H.R. Owen is a dealer of luxury and high-performance vehicles, which are not known to be particularly green. Is there more pressure to be working hard for sustainability because of this? Stone said: “It’s almost oxymoronic when you’re selling V12 engines and miles per gallon are not ever really a consideration, but the truth is these cars stay around for a lot longer. There are probably still 95% in existence. And even when accidents happen, we still have the salvage opportunity for parts. But of course, Bentley is a luxury brand, and it needs to be sustainable and there is always lots of pressure. That won’t change.”

Challenging conditions

Stone concluded by addressing the current economic conditions and how H.R. Owen plans to continue in 2023. He said “We’re experiencing issues that everybody is facing. Interest rates are having a big impact on our operation and the cost of living affects everyone. But, we have performed in accordance with our plan, and while taking on a major product, definitely our biggest project in history, and probably our biggest project that we will ever undertake. We need to navigate the next period responsibly and tactfully. There’s no distress, there’s no panic. There’s just some very calculated navigation that we need to do. That is the motor trade and we’ve been here before and will be here again, it is an industry that is bound by a lot of product lifecycle as well. it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in economy.”