50 Years, One Loyal Customer

Brent Connell’s Lloyd Story

From Fleetwith Motors on Derwent Street to Lloyd Motor Group today, Brent Connell has been there almost every step of the way. An insurance broker by profession, Brent first crossed paths with the Lloyd family through business in the early 1970s, and became a customer before the company was even officially known as Lloyd Motor Group. More than five decades later, he’s still driving a BMW.

“I’ve sold it!”

Some customer relationships are built over years. Brent Connell’s started with a car being sold without him knowing about it.

It was the very early days of Bryan Lloyd finding his feet in the motor trade. Brent had taken his BMW into the newly established BMW operation in Cockermouth for a service, and called in to collect it.

“I went in one particular day and saw Malcolm Moore, who was the chief technician there, and I said, ‘Where is my car, Malcolm? I need to be in Workington in half an hour.’”

Malcolm told him there was nothing wrong with the car, but Bryan wanted to see him.

“So I went in, Bryan was on the phone. He said, ‘I’ll ring you back.’

“I asked, ‘What’s wrong with the car Bryan?’

“He said, ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the car.’

“I said, ‘So what’s my problem?’

“He said, ‘Well I think it’s mine, not yours.’

“I said, ‘What have you done?’

“Bryan said, ‘I’ve sold it!’”

Brent’s response was understandably direct.

“I said, ‘Well, you can get the bloody thing back.’”

There was just one problem.

“He said, ‘I’ve sold it to Malcolm Wilson, it was three or four hours ago, it’ll be in Paris by now.’”

Fortunately, Bryan had a solution. Brent had already been planning to change his car later that year, so Bryan arranged a 5 Series for him to use in the meantime.

“I got a hell of a deal off him that year. So I think he made up for it subsequently.”

It is a story that perfectly captures the relationship Brent would go on to have with the Lloyd family and the team at Cockermouth BMW: cars, business, plenty of characters, and more than a little humour.

Before there was Lloyd Motor Group

Brent’s connection with the Lloyd family actually predates the birth of Lloyd Motors Ltd itself.

An insurance broker, he had insured the Lloyd Group and its tractors from the early 1970s. At the time, the family business was heavily involved in agriculture, while Bryan was deciding his own path.

“Ralph had decided he needed to do something for Bryan, as Barry was earmarked for tractors, and he couldn’t become a professional footballer.”

The opportunity came when the BMW operation at Fleetwith Motors in Cockermouth became available.

“Bryan had a liking for cars, so that’s the route they went down and bought it.”

The new business was a very different proposition to the Lloyd Motor Group people know today.

“It was a little place on Derwent Street and the annual turnover was about £65,000. Now you couldn’t even get a car for that!”



BMW itself was a much smaller marque at the time, with a limited model range.

Brent had already bought a BMW through Fleetwith before changing his car shortly afterwards. As the business grew, his relationship with Lloyd grew alongside it.

“I used to buy cars for the fleet then as I had a business with quite a few people in it. The majority of those people got Volvos, because by then things had blossomed a bit and they’d taken on the Volvo franchise, and normally I’d have three or four BMWs as well.”

And so began a relationship that would continue for more than five decades.

The people behind the business

For Brent, the story of Lloyd is as much about the people as it is the cars.

He remembers Bryan as a newcomer to the motor trade who quickly learned the ropes.

“You could probably say Bryan was a rookie coming into the business, and he had to find his own way in it, but he was a fast learner, and a very sharp guy.”

There were lessons along the way.

On one occasion, Bryan had returned from the Midlands with a used BMW he planned to sell. He asked Brent to take it for a drive.

“It was very comfortable, so I had a look in the glove compartment, as you do, and there were the service records. This has got 25,000 miles on the clock, and it was last serviced at 63,000 miles…”

When Brent returned, Bryan was straight back into the car and heading back to where he had bought it.

“That probably helped him to learn a lesson or two.”

Alongside Bryan were some of the characters who helped shape the early business, including Tom Alston, Ashley Moore and Malcolm Moore.

“Tom, of course, was an absolute gem for them to take on, as he was very experienced in the motor trade then, and he was very well known locally.”

Malcolm looked after the workshop before eventually leaving to establish his own garage in Maryport, while Tom remained with the business until his retirement.


Malcolm Moore left, Brian Whitehead, Mark Crellin, Barry Fawcett, Ashley Moore, David Carlyle.

Then there was Clive Blacklock, another long-standing member of the sales team, who had joined from NatWest Bank.

Brent remembers arriving at the dealership one Saturday morning with a warning light on his BMW. There wasn't a mechanic around, but Clive was there.

“So I said, ‘What do you think Clive? What does it mean?’

“He said, ‘I don’t know, but I can fix it for you.’

“I said, ‘What are you going to do?’

“He said, ‘I can take the bulb out…’”

It is exactly the sort of practical, no-nonsense approach Brent remembers fondly.

The Lloyd way: making things happen

If there is one characteristic Brent believes has remained constant throughout the Lloyd story, it is the attitude of making things happen.

He remembers Ralph Lloyd particularly well, a man with plenty of personality and very clear expectations.

“I think the attitude of making things happen came from Ralph.”

Brent recalls visiting the business one morning and finding Tom Alston had just received a dressing-down from Ralph.

“I said, ‘What for?’

“He said, ‘Tom, are you going to take a cut of silage off the front lawn? Are you going to get the bloody thing cut?’”

It was an attitude that clearly filtered down through the generations.

Ralph’s personality extended well beyond the showroom, too. Having also been running the tractor business, he was accustomed to dealing with farmers, and apparently had his own particular approach to negotiations.

Ralph had a little bar at the back of his office, where he would occasionally emerge with a couple of glasses of whisky.

Except, as Brent heard, there was a catch.

“I did hear on the grapevine that his glass of whiskey was actually dry ginger.”

Apparently Ralph had discovered that a few customers could become considerably more agreeable after a couple of drinks, and he could join them without actually drinking whisky himself.

“He was highly successful with customers after they’d had two or three whiskeys and he’d had two or three dry gingers.”

A BMW journey spanning almost every series

Over the decades, Brent's relationship with Lloyd has been accompanied by an impressive collection of BMWs.

“I have had a 1 Series, 2 Series, 3 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, 7 Series, X5s…”

There have been favourites along the way, but the 7 Series stands out.

Brent had a place in Spain and regularly made the long journey between the UK and Spain with his dog.

“It was superb going back and forth to Spain, over long-haul distances and motorways, so that was a great buy.”

He also remembers a 6 Series coupe with particular fondness.

“I liked the 6 as a coupe, 3.5 litre, that was very comfortable, but just too small for us luggage-wise.”

Then there was the X5, a car that proved its worth in a rather dramatic way.

“Somebody pulled out right in front of me. It was a pretty new one as well, and it was a good job that I had an X5.”

His assessment of the BMW's construction is characteristically understated.

“It’s built like a battleship, so that saved any serious injuries.”

So, perhaps, one of the best buys he made, “for all the wrong reasons.”

Brent’s BMW journey

1 Series → 2 Series → 3 Series → 5 Series → 6 Series → 7 Series → X5 → and back through the range

Today, Brent is driving a BMW 530e hybrid. Before that came a 330e, while an iX1 briefly introduced him to fully electric driving.

“The iX1 was very good and very comfortable, but my wife had range anxiety with it, even though it would do well over 400 miles.”

The plug-in hybrid offered a reassuring compromise.

“It’s a bit like a two-way bet, just in case you do run out of power.”

When a BMW dealership in Spain needed a little help from Cockermouth

One of Brent’s favourite examples of the Lloyd team's approach to customer service actually started thousands of miles away.

He had bought a used BMW 1 Series from BMW in Spain to use while he was there, rather than hiring a car each year.

The car developed a problem, but Brent was due to return home before the warranty issue had been resolved.

“I said, ‘I can’t wait for this guarantee to come through. I’ll pay you now, and you can reimburse me when BMW send me the guarantee.’”

He returned to the UK and waited.

And waited.

Two or three months later, he still hadn't heard anything from BMW in Spain.

“I was getting a bit hot under the collar.”

So Brent went into BMW Cockermouth and Neil Wilson, then the warranty manager, was summoned.

“I told Neil the case, so he said, ‘Leave it with me.’”

A couple of hours later, Brent received an email.

“Brent, I’ve escalated this to Germany.”

Two hours after that, BMW Spain contacted Brent asking for his bank details.

“The next day I had the money.”

Brent was impressed.

“Not the sort of thing you’d expect.”

He may even have bought Neil a bottle of champagne.

Five decades, and plenty of stories

There are countless stories from Brent's years with the Lloyd team, some, he admits, that he can't share.

There was the time Bryan somehow demolished around 120 metres of central crash barrier on the M6, resulting in a six-figure bill.

There was a BMW M1 demonstration day at Ingliston race track in Scotland, where Le Mans driver Martin Bell took Brent around the circuit in the road-going supercar.

And there was the BMW golf tournament at Gleneagles.

Bryan told Brent to put a team in.

So Brent assembled a team including John Smith, then boss of Twinames the builders, and Harvey Lyngaas. They won the event and qualified for the grand final at Wentworth.

Naturally, Brent assumed Lloyd BMW would be looking after their accommodation.

“I said to Bryan, ‘Where are you going to put us up?’

“He said, ‘Pardon?’

“I said, ‘This is an important event Bryan… it’s very important for Lloyd BMW. It’s putting your name on the national map, so you should really go full tilt at this, so you need to put us up.’”

Eventually, Bryan came up with a solution.

He loaned them a 7 Series to drive down in.

“So off we went, but we didn’t win.”

And when asked the inevitable question - did Bryan put you up?

Brent's answer is immediate.

“Did he heck! There’s a limit to his kindness.”

Why did Brent keep coming back?

For more than 50 years, Brent has watched Lloyd grow from a small BMW operation on Derwent Street into the business it is today.

So what kept him coming back?

For Brent, there are two simple answers.

“There was two reasons. First of all, they supported my business, so I felt it was right that I should support theirs.”

“But it went beyond that, because the cars were good and the people were really good.”

That combination has remained important throughout the decades.

“They were a really good team here, all the way through, and that made a big difference.”

His favourite memories aren't necessarily about one particular car or one particular moment.

“Good service, good reaction, helpful people, and just a good all-round impression.”

Of course, there have been disagreements along the way.

“Of course we fell out occasionally, but you always do when you buy and sell cars.”

Ultimately, though, Brent looks back on the journey with enormous affection.

“It’s been a good journey for me as well with BMW.”

And there is one person whose absence is felt particularly strongly.

“It was so sad when Bryan departed suddenly, especially as he looked as fit as he did.”

Brent remembers his personality as much as his business acumen, including the way Bryan would always greet Brent's wife with a hug and a kiss whenever they visited, knowing full well that it embarrassed her.

“And the more he knew it annoyed her, the more he would do it.”

For Brent, that warmth and personality were part of what made the relationship with Lloyd different.

“Bryan had to put his heart and soul into it. He’s left a hell of a legacy.”

From Fleetwith Motors on Derwent Street, when BMW had just a handful of models, to the modern Lloyd Motor Group and the latest generation of electrified BMWs, Brent Connell has seen an extraordinary amount of change.

But perhaps the most important thing hasn't changed at all.

The cars are still good.

And, more importantly, the people are still good.

After more than 50 years, Brent is still here.

And he’s still driving a BMW.