Marshall Motor Group has been presented with the Barclays Award, which recognises successful, established businesses across all industry sectors which have transformed themselves amid strong competition.

The award was presented at King's College, Cambridge.

Marshall chief executive Daksh Gupta, who received the award, said: "This is an amazing award for a retail motor dealer group to have won.

"Cambridge is the leading centre of global high tech businesses, many of them household names or providers of the technology which powers our everyday lives, such as ARM, the world's largest producer of microchips, whose products are embedded in almost every portable electronic device in the world.

"To be recognised in this way by the Cambridge business community is huge news for Marshall and a great credit to the whole team who have pulled together to drive our business forward over the last five years."

In their summary, the judges particularly commended Marshall for more than trebling the size of the group during the economic downturn, becoming a national group and funding all of the growth internally without drawing down any additional capital from the shareholders.

Marshall Motor Group was founded in Cambridge 105 years ago and is a major part of the Marshall of Cambridge Group of Companies, with 67 sites, 2,100 employees and an annual turnover now in excess of £1 billion.