Golden celebration for Turners Motor Group

The Suffolk-based Turners Motor Group is celebrating its golden anniversary.

The business was originally founded by husband and wife team John and Pauline Turner, who both had a dream to run a business together.

From their first outlet, a small garage selling used cars in Needham Market, the family-run business has grown to become a multi-million pound turnover business operating regionally within the motor, retail and property sectors and employing around 100 people.

However, it is a little known fact that the idea for a new business involving motor vehicles, came about as a result of Pauline Turner entering a “Sunshine Motoring Competition” advertised on the back of a cornflake packet in 1963, where she won one of the 40 brand new Ford Cortinas being given away as a prize.

After picking up her new car from the Mann Egerton garage in Ipswich and enjoying 18 months of happy motoring, an opportunity came up to purchase an old bacon curing factory on the High Street in Needham Market.

The Turners sold the car and together with the money they had received from selling their house in Stowmarket, purchased the site and set about converting the building into a garage.

The rest, as they say, is history, with the business having grown over the past five decades to incorporate Tothill Services, on the A14 at Haughley, near Stowmarket, and the Hyundai dealerships at both Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds.

In the early 1980s, after John had a heart attack, sons Ian and Glen took over the day-to-day running of Turners Motor Group. Sadly, John Turner died in September 2012, but the business remains very much a family affair.

Pauline Turner said: “I am so proud of how Turners has grown under the care of Ian and Glen. John would be so pleased that our boys have kept at the heart of the business our values and ethos around maintaining the highest standards of customer service and treating everyone who works for Turners as members of the family.”