“When we started it was like the four of us against the 200 staff. Sometimes at first we took the approach against opposition to what we wanted as ‘it’s our business, you’ll do it our way’. We weren’t always right and people barked back. It has taken us seven, eight years to get staff who wanted to be Swansway people, not ex-Ryland or ex-LC Charles.”

Swansway could have brought in talent from other groups. RRG would have been an obvious source, but Smyth Snr said no. If the sons were going to make Swansway a success, they had to do it on their own.

John said: “It was tough at the start, particularly when people were approaching us to work at Swansway that we couldn’t say yes to. But we have realised the best way to build a culture is from the ground up, developing people new to the business rather than falling back on employing the mediocre layer of middle management that permeates the industry. You hire them, they don’t fit or don’t perform, undermine what you’re trying to achieve, and you have to work hard to get rid of them.”

How they did that is with family values.

The Smyths like to say that staff are part of their family, with geniune partnerships with its brands. There are two extreme examples of this. First there are annual branch inspections at every dealership. Each centre – and head office – is given two months to prepare to ensure it is up to the group’s and manufacturer’s exacting quality standards. The cost is put at about £12,000 per dealership per year.

Peter said: “When a manufacturer says one of our sites isn’t up to scratch then we jump on it to get things up to scratch. It’s a false economy to procrastinate as you will have to make the changes sooner or later. But the branch inspections means there’s a continuous cycle of standard-setting and improvement.”

As a result, Swansway has the only Audi market area that is fully compliant with its Journey 2020 corporate identity.

At the other extreme, there is a rule that coats cannot be left on the back of chairs. They have to go on coat stands.

“I want our sites to be like our homes. I don’t want to live in a dump or work in one. The coat thing is a fetish, but a very basic requirement,” Peter said.