BCA celebrates 70th anniversary of first sale

BCA is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its first vehicle auction.

Founder David Wickins first staged a sale in a marquee at Frimley Bridges in 1946 selling 14 cars, as Southern Counties Car Auctions. Today BCA touches over 3.5m vehicles a year and works with manufacturers, fleet operators and dealers.

Simon Henstock , BCA’s chief operating officer, UK Remarketing, has nearly 40 years of experience with the company. 

He said: “Auctions are the stock market of the used car sector and handle everything from nearly-new models to older high mileage examples.  This flexibility, and the capability to handle huge volumes of vehicles quickly and efficiently, is why vehicle auctions continue to thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace.” 

“BCA has evolved to meet these changing needs, improving the service to customers and offering different ways to buy.  For example, the business uses a bespoke iPad app to deliver accurate and consistent pre-sale appraisals on all vehicles entered for sale, which links directly to BCA’s online catalogues to generate a condition report alongside high quality images.”

He added: “Buyers in the auction hall compete with online bidders on almost every vehicle we sell and 25% of all vehicles sold at BCA are purchased online. We also offer over 400,000 vehicles a year with the benefit of a BCA Assured mechanical inspection which is an independent multi-point vehicle check carried out by the AA at BCA.  After 70 years, BCA is still driving innovation in the market.”