Interview: Terry Hogan and Chris Ashton-Green, CEOs of Regit

Automotive enthusiasts Terry Hogan and Chris Ashton-Green are on a mission to simplify the car-owning lifecycle for Britain’s 40-odd million drivers.

The pair are joint CEOs of Motoring.co.uk, which this month relaunches as Regit to strengthen its foothold in the online motoring scene.

Now operating from Regit.cars, the business centres around its MyMotoring hub – a digital portal giving users access to all the information they need, in one place, when it comes to buying, selling and maintaining their car.

Terry said: “We make motoring easier by taking a customer’s registration number and using it to help with whatever matters to them.

“That might be something as simple as ‘When’s my MOT due?’, ‘What is my car worth?’ or ‘How do I get the best price for a car I’m trying to sell?’. Our aim is to offer support throughout the lifecycle of car ownership.”

Chris told me that both he and Terry have been in the automotive sector for years.

“For most of our lives, we’ve worked for franchise dealers such as Ford, Vauxhall, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi,” he said.

We’re able to focus instead on the entire car-owning lifecycle

“Eight years ago, we decided to set up an online portal with a similar look and feel to Auto Trader. That’s how we started out, but as Motoring.co.uk grew we expanded into the new car market as an online publisher.

“The business moved on and we began collecting lots of consumer and vehicle data.”

This data-centric approach, Chris explained, fed the business valuable information about car ownership.

He continued: “Whereas Auto Trader focuses on the used car journey, the used car purchase, and What Car? focuses on the new car journey and purchase, we’re able to focus instead on the entire car-owning lifecycle.

Image: Chris (left) and Terry

“So from a registration number – hence the rebrand to Regit – we’re now able to effectively help consumers buy, sell and maintain.

“And perhaps more importantly, with the digitisation of car owning from a DVSA and DVLA perspective, we’re able to keep them legal by reminding users their tax and MOT are due.”

Chris said that while there’s no immediate benefit for the company in providing tax reminders as the tool is free to use, offering it is “right for the consumer, for the car owner” and will help build customer loyalty over time.

Moving forward under its new moniker, Regit will use machine learning and algorithms to predict when users will be looking to buy or sell a car – insights that will be shared with selected partners, such as dealers and manufacturers, for them use within their own datasets.

However, Chris told me the focus will still be on the consumer.

He continued: “As both Terry and I have worked in the automotive business all our lives, we’ve been heavily embedded in that consumer journey through buying, selling and maintaining, both as car owners ourselves and through working within the franchise dealer network and working with car manufacturers.

“It’s pretty much all we know, so we’re well versed in this arena.”

He believes it’s a similar approach to the successful formulae underpinning the work of multinationals like Uber, Amazon and Netflix.

Terry said: “Looking back at where we were a couple of years ago, we were doing lots of things but we didn’t have a clear purpose. We did new car advertising, the same for used vehicles.

We’ll now be able to call out dealers or manufacturers when they’re not doing what’s best for the consumer

“The consumers were obviously a big part of our business, but we saw the dealers and the manufacturers as our customers.

“But now we’ve turned it around, which means we’ll now be able to call out dealers or manufacturers when they’re not doing what’s best for the consumer.”

I wondered if, in deciding to relaunch as Regit, Chris and Terry were reluctant to step away from a valuable URL like Motoring.co.uk.

Chris said: “It is definitely valuable, but it’s also a bit generic. It doesn’t explain what we do. It just made us look like your average, run-of-the-mill publisher.”

So why Regit? Chris explained the dictionary-altering ambition behind the name.

“We want to become synonymous with car owning. When there’s a car-based conversation or decision taking place, we’d love them to say “Just Regit’ or ‘Let’s Regit’. By putting that registration into our hub, you can find out everything about your car or one you’re looking to buy.”

The aim is to get to 5.7m registered users. That’s our target

In the next few years, Chris and Terry want to effectively double Regit’s foothold in UK motoring.

“The aim,” Terry said, “is to get to 5.7m registered users. That’s our target. At the moment we have 2.7m.

“We’ve now massively improved our technical stack and approach to data intelligence, and all that will help grow the business organically.”

Regit is on the cusp of a big investment deal, but the CEOs couldn’t reveal anything concrete as the terms of the agreement are yet to be finalised.

The investment will fuel the growth of Regit’s user base, but Terry said the company’s relationship with its partner network will also be a big contributing factor.

He explained: “We currently deal with 18 of the top 25 car manufacturers that operate in the UK in one form or another.”

A bigger user base, Terry said, will give the business a solid platform for future growth.

With the investment on the way and the new brand and online hub live, Regit is clearly driving in the fast lane to success.

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