Five decades in the car trade. Five years under our own name.
We Buy Cars Hexham started on 24 August 2021 with me, a laptop and a shipping container at the family farm. The trade behind it goes back to 1970, when my stepdad Mick Robson bought the Allendale Motor Company while still in his teens. This is the whole story, in my own words.
The Allendale Motor Company forecourt in the village square, from the family archive. It is The Forge cafe now.
Mick, and the Allendale Motor Company
My stepdad Mick Robson was born in 1953. In 1970, still in his teens, he bought the Allendale Motor Company on the village square. He was a mechanic by trade first and always, and he ran it as a repair garage, with car sales as the sideline. Some sideline: over the years Aston Martins, Lotuses, Porsches and Mercedes all crossed that little village forecourt, alongside the everyday runabouts of half of Allendale.
In 2003 he sold the forecourt, which is The Forge cafe today, and moved the workshop and a much smaller sales operation out to our family farm outside the village, where we are still based. From then on it was mainly repair and service work, the hay, the digger and the land, with a few cars still passing through.
He got me into the trade as a teenager. We bought and sold together for years before I revived the sales side properly under the We Buy Cars name.
"He taught me the trade. He never quite trusted my way of doing it, the websites and the data, and I like to think the last five years would have won him round."John, on Mick
Tea break in the workshop at the farm, mid-repair, in the AMCO years.
Two origins in one frame: the van that named us, outside the shipping container the business was run from. "We Buy Cars" sat bigger than the AMCO badge, exactly as Mick and I ordered it.
The van that named us
My step-grandparents live next door to the old forecourt, and in 2020 their van, whose one daily job was taking the family dog out to the fields, parked every day on the exact ground where the Allendale Motor Company stood, right outside what is now The Forge. The best advertising spot in the village, going spare.
Mick and I offered to "clean" it. What we actually did was book it in with Mike Bryson at M & R Signs, and agree between us that "We Buy Cars" should be written bigger than the AMCO logo. Mick softened the ground with talk of "maybe a few small stickers". What came back was a full wrap.
They were not impressed. They tried more than once to have the decals taken off; Mick kept saying he would do it "in a month", and the month never came. By the time I set up on my own the following year the name had stuck. Sat in the car rattling off ideas, my step-brother Jack just said "why not just We Buy Cars?" That was that.
Five decades to five years
Every date here is checked. It is the same timeline we gave the Hexham Courant for the fifth anniversary.
- 1970
Mick buys the Allendale Motor Company
Born 1953, still in his teens. A mechanic by trade with car sales as the sideline, petrol pumps out front, and everything from Astons to family hatchbacks crossing the forecourt over the next three decades.
- 2003
The forecourt is sold, the farm becomes home
Mick sells the forecourt (The Forge cafe now) and moves the workshop and a much smaller sales operation to the family farm outside the village, where we are still based. Mainly a repair and service garage from here on.
- 2016
The first car I ever flipped
I buy my first car as a teenager, a red BMW 1 Series, and promptly write it off. On Mick's advice I find a scruffy Fiat Punto, sort it myself on five pound second-hand tyres from a fella in Sunderland, put it through its MOT and sell it at a profit. Mick starts passing me the rough ones and the MOT failures, and a profit-share takes shape. One disaster fitting brake pads to an MX-5 settles the rest: my lane is the cars and the people, not the spanners.
- 2019
Back on the pitch
The digger is already on the farm for groundwork, so the yard gets extended and a handful of honest runabouts go back out for sale. Mick buys them in the way he always did, on a gut feel; I do the graft behind them.
- 2020
The van
The secretly sign-written van outside the old forecourt (see above). The name is decided before the business exists.
- 24 Aug 2021
We Buy Cars Hexham is founded
Me, a laptop and a converted shipping container at the yard, while I was studying computer science. The plan was simple: buy cars properly, pay people fairly and do the paperwork right. That has not changed.
- Aug 2022
First birthday, and Mick steps back
Over 100 cars bought, sold or scrapped in year one, covered by the Courant. Mick decides he is done with car sales and I run it my own way: HPI checks, valuation data and a website I built myself, where the old business priced on instinct. Mick's verdict was "online has killed it". Half of what I spent money on was, to his mind, a waste. Some of it was.
- Aug 2023
Second birthday
New kits for Hexham FC. I finish my BSc in Computer Science at Northumbria while running the business, taking trade calls from the back row of lectures.
- Aug 2024
Third birthday
New kits for Corbridge United's under-15s. We are voted the Courant's Trader of the Week, and I finish an MSc in Accounting and Finance.
- Nov 2024
We lose Mick
Fifty years of knowing cars and knowing people. Everything here is built on him.
- 24 Aug 2026
Five years
A recovery truck, a fleet of branded vans driven by me, my mum Helen and the family, 190 reviews across Google and Trustpilot, and the same plan as day one. This anniversary is for Mick.
Two photographs on the moors
These two were taken fifty years apart up on the Northumberland moors, and there is someone sat in the boat in both. The first is Mick, at the wheel of the family speedboat behind the Range Rover in the 1970s. The second is Jack, his son, in the same seat and the same pose in August 2026. Different boat, similar setting, same daft love of one.
Mick Robson, 1953 to 2024
Fifty years in the trade, a village institution, and the man who taught me everything from how to know a good car to the advice that still runs this business. Every car we buy, we look at properly, in person, and we treat the person selling it the way we would want to be treated. That is his, not mine.
"Keep your overheads low, and treat people the way you would want to be treated. That was Mick's advice, and it still runs the business today."John
Mick in his AMCO polo. Thank you, Mick.
The people behind it
In the early days my mum would drive me out to look at cars for fifty pounds a run, and a good week meant the family splitting a takeaway to celebrate. That spirit never left. It is a proper family business, and these are the people in it.
The fleet today, out across the valley.
My partner, and the backbone of it. She helps across every side of the business and is the reason the weekends and late nights are possible.
My sister. Marketing, emails and the events that keep We Buy Cars in front of the valley.
My step-brother, Mick's son. Repairs the cars and fabricates the daft builds in metal: the giant Santa hat, the sign mounts, the wiring. He is the one sat in the boat.
My mum. Coordinates the collections and drop-offs, helps prep the themed van, and drove every early car-hunting run.
My sister Lucy's partner. Keeps the fleet maintained and road-ready.
Me. I still appraise every car myself. No call centre, no screen valuation, a proper look and an honest offer, owner to owner.
Kits, convoys and the daft stuff people recognise
We never managed to secure land for a permanent Hexham site, so we show up around the town instead. Kits for Hexham FC, Corbridge United's juniors and Hexham Juniors, foodbank donations, books for local schools, and the tiny recovery truck, the gorilla at the county show and the Santa-hat convoy that raises money for the Great North Air Ambulance and Santa's Little Helpers.
"I grew up here and played for these clubs as a kid. Kit sponsorship would have meant a lot to my family back then, so being able to do it now has been the best part of the whole five years."John
As reported by the Hexham Courant and ChronicleLive
The Courant has followed us since the first few months, and ChronicleLive picked the story up for our fifth anniversary. The full pieces are on their sites.
- Northumberland car-buying business marks fifth anniversary with look back to 1970s rootsChronicleLive - The Chronicle picked the story up on the anniversary itself, with a 15-photo gallery.
- We Buy Cars, Hexham marking anniversary in NorthumberlandHexham Courant - Five years, Mick, the van, the family, the boat pair.
- Owner of We Buy Cars' fight to establish Hexham presenceHexham Courant - Years of trying to find land for a permanent Hexham site.
- We Buy Cars, Hexham sponsors Corbridge FC with new kitsHexham Courant - Corbridge United's under-15s in the new kits.
- We Buy Cars - Hexham voted Courant's Trader of the WeekHexham Courant - Nominated by readers.
- We Buy Cars Hexham sponsors Hexham Barca Football TeamHexham Courant - Kits for Hexham Barca.
- We Buy Cars - Hexham business to support local sport teamsHexham Courant - Second birthday, Hexham FC kits.
- We Buy Cars Hexham celebrates first birthdayHexham Courant - Over 100 cars bought, sold or scrapped in year one.
- We Buy Cars - Hexham owner concerned over speed limits in townHexham Courant - An early one, on the town.
More on our press and data page.
The same promise, five decades on
You deal with the buyer, not a national call centre or an algorithm.
A proper in-person look at the actual car, not a screen estimate.
An honest, no-obligation offer, with no surprise deductions later.
Free collection across Hexham, the Tyne Valley and Northumberland.
Thinking of selling? Let's talk.
Tell us about your car and get a fair, owner-to-owner offer from a real local buyer. Any make, any age, faults and non-runners welcome.