Autohorn gears up for future growth following largest ever delivery of vehicles

Vehicle hire and lease specialist, Autohorn is marking its twentieth year in York by announcing a record year, a stronger board and significant growth plans to increase its fleet of 2000 vehicles.

Autohorn also received its largest ever delivery of more than 1000 cars and vans in the final quarter of this year.

Specializing in fleet management for companies that run fleets of vehicles, Autohorn’s services include vehicle hire, vehicle leasing, flexible leasing, fuel management, driver training and accident management which if offers throughout the UK.

The company also provides personal vehicle leasing under its 1st Car Leasing brand and offers vehicle rental from its Europcar franchise which is based at York Railway Station.

Established in 1995 with a fleet of nine cars and five members of staff, the company has grown to be a £7.5m turnover operation buying in excess of £30m worth of vehicles every year with a team of 70 staff rising to 100 in seasonally busy periods.

The company’s future growth plans include expanding the fleet by a further 1500 vehicles over the next five years, which will mean taking on between 25 and 40 new staff across the business.

Using local suppliers wherever possible, Autohorn has created up to 50 additional jobs in dealerships across the region.

Lee Underwood, managing director, said: “We are thrilled that our twentieth year has been such a landmark year for us. The secret of our success is really down to building great relationships between our suppliers, our team and our customers. We are the biggest customer at Mercedes Benz in York, where we buy 450 vehicles a year. We’re also Volvo and Toyota’s biggest customers. It will be important that we all work together even more as we grow and expand over the next few years.”

The company has also appointed two new directors through staff promotion, Scott Fraser becomes sales and operations director and Fraser Maclean becomes fleet director.

Mr Underwood added: “We had just three on the board previously and now we have strengthened it to five. We needed a larger, hands-on team to drive business forward for the next 15 years and so we have made two appointments from within the business. Scott has been with us for two years and Fraser for three and a half. They both have unique qualities which they bring to the board and I am sure their appointments will be of huge benefit to the business as we grow.”

Autohorn is based in the firm’s head office in Leeman Road, York which it moved into in February 2014 following a £250k investment, refurbishing an old warehouse to bring operations under one roof.

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