Our History

Our family-run business has been richly involved with the motoring industry for over 80 years. Over this time, our skill and expertise has grown to make us one the UK’s premier car dealers. We attribute our success to maintaining the same key values we held when we began. These are maintaining excellent customer service and selling outstanding cars.

In the 1940s, Hersham and Walton Motors had a successful stint as a manufacturer of race cars. George Abecassis and John Heath began racing together in 1946 and were responsible for a new racing car that used the chassis of a Sports Alta. After building the HW-Alta, they went on to build a full team of cars for the 1950 Formula Two event. It was here that they built their reputation for HWM cars.

Despite having only a small budget, HWM went on to achieve remarkable success in Formula One during the early 1950s, driven by legends including Stirling Moss. Their impressive constructions would often speed past the Jaguars and Aston Martins they were racing against.

Heath and Abecassis branched the company out further in the middle of the century by pioneering a travelling race car team. The manufacturer achieved something remarkable. Three HWMs took part in 20 competitive international events over 27 weeks. This took the team over to Italy, France, Belgium and Germany.

This rich history of race car driving influences everything that we do today. We only supply you with the most premium and enjoyable cars because that is what we are used to.


HWM is also the world's oldest and therefore most experienced Aston Martin dealership. From here our award winning Aston Martin dealership has flourished to become one we are incredibly proud of. In 2017, HWM Sports Cars was born, selling pre-loved cars of all marques. And now, HWM are excited to expand, becoming HWM Caterham on 1st September 2023.

In 2019, 'John, George and the HWMs' was released. It is a huge honour to have a two-volume book written about our dealership. Below is a video of the author of the book discussing his writing process.