UK Car Group’s Carcraft closed down in 2015 after entering administration. This was the original motor supermarket formed in 1951 and their administrator (Grant Thornton) headlined them as being the 7th largest chain and so it was important to explore them further here. This Rochdale chain was one of the key North West operations (they also had a Trafford Centre showroom) and they were successful nationwide with 11 supermarkets. As noted, they were coined as the 7th biggest chain (selling 12,000 used vehicles each year). Grant Thornton said that the group suffered from “Poor market reputation, lack of investment, a high cost base, expensive loan note financing and an insolvent balance sheet”.

They had been making annual losses close to £8 million that had been going on for a few years. When they closed more than 500 jobs were lost. Customers also suffered through the loss of cover of their Drive Happy initiative that included MOT, roadside assistance, servicing and warranty. The www.carcraft.co.uk domain now just shows a “Coming Soon” notice. What was interesting with this motor supermarket was that the Carcraft finance was taken internally by All In One Finance Ltd. They did interestingly previously state that poor credit including CCJs was accepted. The agreements weren’t disclosed, but hire purchase would have been likely since the repayment range was 36 to 60 months.

You could apply for Carcraft finance through www.carcraft.co.uk. A previous APR figure was picked out on this site at 19.9% APR. They did as noted cater subprime audiences that is why this rate wasn’t low. It is not clear how many vehicles they had stocked across their entire network. They just stated that they stocked up to 40 of the world’s favourite manufacturers. They had been long running since 1951 and their supermarkets were trading 7 days a week. They had clearly lost business through emerging rivals such as Motorpoint, but from what their administrator had commented, it appears to have been the overall business running that sent them into the ground.