News

- former cricket ace helps Hills Ford at the start of their innings! Former Worcestershire County Cricket player Martin Weston is experiencing a level of success that his old team can only have dreamt of this past season! Martin graced the hallowed turf at New Road, in a career that saw him score more than 9000 runs for Worcestershire and take nearly 200 wickets with his right arm medium pacers, playing for more than twelve years until he retired from playing for the county in 1995. He headed for a new full time career in the automotive sector and has become a well known face for the hordes of people that have purchased Fords in the county during the past fifteen years or so. But now Martin is ‘heading up’ the business at the county’s newest Ford dealership – Hills Ford – based in Newtown Road in Malvern. The dealership was launched in August this year by Tim and Richard Hill, following the demise of Brooklyn Ford. The brothers and joint managing directors of the new company were delighted that Martin agreed to join them in Malvern: “We’ve known Martin for years and we saw him as a key component of the new dealership here,” says Tim Hill. “Our new venture here in Malvern and our other new dealership in Kidderminster, were able to secure the jobs of 40 people from the defunct Brooklyn operation who transferred across to us, ensuring there was no break in the service being offered to Ford customers in the area. That’s important to us and already we are seeing customers we’ve known for years coming into the showrooms, delighted to see familiar faces like Martin’s waiting to greet them again.” The new dealership has taken off really well in the town proving that there is substantial brand loyalty to Ford in the Malvern area: “Malvern is a typical Ford town,” says Martin. “We have customers that have never driven anything but a Ford, some for decades. Pleasingly, we are also seeing a raft of new customers too – particularly younger ones attracted by the new KA and Fiesta models. And the scrappage scheme has been good for us as well – with many people bringing in their ten year old cars of which there are loads in the area, and ‘cashing them in’ for a new model.” So customers in Malvern are seeing Martin as something of ‘a safe pair of hands’ – not surprising for a man who took more than 120 catches for Worcestershire during his career!