When celebs, sports icons, and movie directors need a new set of wheels, who do they turn to?
Nigel Unsworth’s customer list reads like a Who’s Who of the rich and famous. From the world of film they include Paul Greengrass and Daniel Radcliffe, from TV and radio there are Chris Moyles and Vernon Kay, from dance Anton du Beke and Michael Flatley, from music Ronan Keating and from sport Ian Botham, Brendan Rogers, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish.
Another name this car dealer to the stars has dealt with is… Well, let’s just say he’s a former captain of Manchester United. At this news John, our photographer and a lifelong supporter of Hereford United, which lost 1-0 to the Red Devils in the 1990 FA Cup, nearly drops his coffee mug – it once belonged to the footballer.
Unsworth explains how he came to have it. “I had come to his home to buy his old Bentley Bentayga,” he says. “We’re standing in his kitchen and his wife says: ‘Don’t forget the Bentley mug you got with it. Nigel’s bought your car, so the mug’s now his as well.’
“He didn’t like that but she insisted: she took it out of a cupboard and gave it to me!” Unsworth had got his own back: only moments before, the United legend had pointed to his Alsatian, telling Unsworth the dog ate car dealers alive. “You better be careful,” he’d said.
Unsworth insists he takes such banter in his stride. “Being able to have a joke is part of the job,” he says. “These people use my services because they like to feel they’re in good hands. They relax and lighten up. They’ve been to car dealers who haven’t treated them very well. They see them coming and think ‘this bloke can afford to pay top dollar’. The customer becomes resentful, their defences go up and they think I’m not going to pay you a penny.”
And then there are the rich and famous who look anything but and who, on expressing interest in an expensive car they apparently cannot afford, are shown the showroom door.
“One of my customers, the British director of a famous film franchise, looks a bit of a hippy,” says Unsworth. “He once turned up at a dealer to buy a new Mercedes. He told the salesman what he was interested in, and the guy directed him to the brochure stand telling him to come back tomorrow. Later the same day, he rang me and I sourced him a car.”
However, on Unsworth’s office wall is a chart displaying the status of his current deals, peppered with the names of celebrity customers whose identities he has asked me not to divulge.
To be honest, the cars they are buying are more interesting. Among the AMGs, Porsches and Bentleys are more modest motors, including Kia EV6s and 9s. “One customer, a big-name radio personality, has a performance car, but he wants an EV6 for the school and station runs and to sling his golf clubs in the back of at weekends,” explains Unsworth.
Unsworth likens his world to a food chain, with the celebs at the top passing down their cars and prompting further sales. “Recently, I bought a Bentley from an ex-England football captain who I had just supplied with another,” he says. “I sold the Bentley to a chap who owns a business up north.
He liked the fact that the car’s previous owner was a football star. He had a cheaper 911 to part-exchange, which I bought and which I then sold to the regional director of a business. The chain ended there but it was fun.”
Unsworth is no stranger to the world of big spenders. Having served as general manager of a Mercedes dealership in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1990s, he was offered the role of UK sales manager for Maybach and Mercedes SLR McLaren.
“Part of my role was to encourage the dealers to find customers for Maybach; people with proper money to spend.” Unfortunately for Unsworth, the last thing they wanted to spend it on was a Maybach. In the face of faltering sales, in 2013 Daimler pulled the plug on the brand. Mercedes then offered him a job helping to establish a new VIP department, its aim to encourage and leverage relationships with celebrities.
Deals were sweetened with big discounts and short-term leases. “It worked perfectly,” recalls Unsworth. “The high-profile sportsman is mates with a musician who’s mates with the TV star. Soon they’re all saying to each other: ‘Did you know you can get that?’ ‘How does that work?’ ‘You need to ring this chap…'”
Very soon, the stars were asking Unsworth to find them Ferraris, Porsches… Maybe the odd Mini for the nanny: “I’d find them what they wanted, but I was personally making no money out of doing so, so in 2013 I set myself up as a car broker, specialising in high-net-worth individuals.” His biggest single deal is the Mercedes-AMG One he sourced for a customer. “I tapped my old contacts for that one,” he says.
“Bringing cars and customers together is what I do. I’m an overweight cupid!”
