New £8 million Lexus Edgware Road Centre opens its doors

Lexus Edgware Road opened its doors for business at 8.30am on Saturday 16th August and sales executive Fasil Khurshid had made the first sale by 9.30am.

Click here to see pictures of the new Edgware Road Lexus Centre.

The Centre’s first customer purchased a Lexus Approved Pre-Owned IS 250 from Fasil and set the scene for a highly successful first weekend of trading. Visitors to the new Centre over the weekend enjoyed champagne served from personalised bottles.

Comments Lexus Edgware Road general manager Diana Mackinnon: “It was a huge boost to sell our first car after being open for just an hour and the second sale followed at 10.30am. That set the precedent for the day and by the close of play we’d sold five vehicles. It was a tremendous start to our new business.”

Prominently located overlooking the Edgware Road and bordering Hillfield Avenue and Woodfield Avenue, the new £8 million Lexus Edgware Road is a UK flagship Centre for the brand. Previously located behind its sister Toyota business about half-a-mile away, the new high profile position is already having an affect.

Adds Diana: “Our tucked away location meant we were never seen despite being housed on one of London’s busiest roads. In the run-up to the weekend and our first weekend of trading proved that our new highly visible Centre is already encouraging more people into our business. The day before we opened we were on site arranging our used car display and we took seven appointments for the following week!”

Work began at the site in March and on 4th August the hoardings came down revealing the Centre for the first time. With more than 10 days to go before the start of trading, white drapes were erected inside the glass-fronted Centre as behind-the-scenes final touches were made and to discourage visitors from entering the yet-to-be-finished site.

Says Diana: “As a team, we literally moved mountains in the final week to opening from transferring everything we needed to be able to run the business to creating our new car displays on both our ground and first floor showrooms as well as arranging our used car forecourt – something we’d never had at our previous location.

“We worked until nearly 1am on the Friday night when we finally pulled down the drapes to reveal the Centre for the first time – it was a fantastic moment for all of us.”

The 2,833 m2 two-storey facility includes an impressive 11-car showroom which extends over two floors. The top floor has been specially designed to showcase the luxury hybrid the LS 600h and the newly launched sporty IS-F as well as incorporating a separate VIP selections area to allow customers to discuss and negotiate their purchase in complete privacy.   A 50-plus Lexus Approved Pre-owned vehicle and demonstrator display lines the forecourt where plenty of customer parking is also available.

The sales team made up of sales manager David Joseph, business manager Erol Mehmet, corporate sales manager Dan Brown, sales executives AJ Akhtar, David Spencer, Antonio Almeida, Robert Martin and Fasil Khurshid, sales administrator Joy Deguzman and Centre hosts Chan Pieres, Eric Fearon and Gerry Prodano, are now located at the new site. After sales manager David Johnston and service advisors Austin Bradford and Phil Rees now also operate from the new Centre.

Assistant after sales manager Barrie Sands and his team of eight technicians continue to operate at the previous site which will now undergo a refurbishment to create a dedicated Lexus Aftercare Centre. The refurbishment includes an extension of the workshop with an additional two ramps bringing it to a total of nine.

An official launch evening will take place on Thursday 23rd October when Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, who drives a Lexus LS 600h, will declare the Centre officially open.