There’s a story told in the car industry about Daksh Gupta, the boss of Marshall Motor Group, that he “accidentally” sold a car while working his student job washing vehicles. It gets better when you ask the man himself.
“It’s absolutely true,” says the chief executive of one the country’s largest car dealer businesses, reflecting on how he started in the industry. “Actually, that day I sold three.”
Wind back almost 30 years to when Gupta, then studying computing at Oxford Brookes, landed a part-time job at a dealership in his student town.
“Students triple the population in Oxford so getting a job is not easy,” he says. “But my dad said I should learn the value of the pound so I took what I could – washing cars on a Saturday.”
“Back then dealerships didn’t open on Sundays – crazy when you think now it’s our second busiest day – but the owners said they were thinking of it,” says Gupta. “He told me to open up next Sunday and take details of any potential customers.”
