History of Porsche Centre South Lakes

It all started with James Parker who set up in business as a blacksmith in 1879 in Longpool, Kendal.

James fabricated ploughs as they specialised in wrought iron work and agricultural machinery.

One of his ploughs was at the Plough Inn at Selside 100 years later so they were obviously well made.

The image to the left was taken in 1916 and shows James Parker outside the premises (third from the right at the back), with his son Lancelot Steele (middle with eye patch) and the rest of the staff.

Lancelot Steele was known as Kit to his friends and he was the one who changed the direction of the business towards motor vehicles. 

This change of direction started with Motorbikes.

Kit expanded into other forms of transport, notably the Scott Sociable three wheeler. 

Sadly it is said that Alfred Scott contracted Pneumonia from which he died after driving one of these back from a day out potholing.

The Parker family progressed into four wheels taking the Jowett franchise in 1923 for cars and commercials.

Javelin which was a luxury saloon - Jupiter which was a sports car were the last models. They both had four cylinder engines with the same horizontally opposed configuration. Sadly Jowett went out of business in 1954.

Between 1923 and 1953, we also had periods as agents for Riley, Standard, Ford and Lloyd.

In the first World War, Kit and the team engineered 60,000 fuse caps for shells at Longpool and in the second World War they were subcontracted for Gilbert Gilkes and Vickers and undertook a variety of work for the Ministry of Supply.

Sadly Kit passed away in 1955, just prior to our link up with Porsche in 1957.

Kits son, Jim joined the business in the late 1940’s having served in the merchant navy.

Jim shared Kit’s passion for motor vehicles, engineering and of course, VW and Porsche.

In 1952 the company changed to Parker & Parker Ltd, they secured the VW franchise in 1953 with the first years allocation being four cars.

Jim was open to new technologies and installed a cutting edge service bay in 1958, which must have looked quite something when compared with most workshops at the time.

Jim secured the Porsche franchise in 1957.

Pictured is our showroom in 1965 and you can see our Irish Green 356 SC demonstrator & a new 356C in Dove Grey in the showroom.

These were our last 356’s as they were replaced by the 911.

Attached to the old dealership were cottages which you can just see on the left of the photo.

Porsche showed a LHD 911 at the 1963 London Motor Show, that car was bought by Sorjo Ranta.

We handed over our first new 911 from the pictured premises in 1965.

To spread the word about the brand, Jim became involved in the Porsche Club – regionally and nationally and would attend and run many club events at the dealership.

You can see a video of a drive out from 1966 by the Porsche Club around our area, whith both Jim and a young Ian in attendance, via the link below.

https://youtu.be/nbz6twv5XV4

As volumes grew, the building became too small so planning went in for a new showroom, further expanding Longpool beyond what had been done before.

Sadly we don’t have many images of the 1967 development.

Hill climbs and sprints

As the business grew, it allowed Jim to indulge in his passion for driving.

He entered hill climbs in a 911 which he had modified himself for more power

The one that got away

In the late 60’s he obtained a 904, previously owned by Stirling Moss, which he hill climbed extensively.

During this period of expansion, Jim’s sons Colin, Roy and Ian joined the business.

Colin joined the business in 1966 straight from school, on the Service side of the business.

Colin shared the driving of the 904 at hillclimbs. 

Ian joined in 1972, starting on the Sales side. He worked at a local accountants and Barclays before.

Roy trained as an accountant and gained experience in two other businesses in Preston before joining in 1979.

This decade started in an interesting way, to say the least with a cow falling through our roof.

That’s right… a cow through our roof!

Ian was at a meeting in Reading, calling the garage hoping for some good news. 

Now it was April, however, on checking it wasn’t 1 April he quickly came to realise the perils of having an auction mart located close to your business!

Whilst it wasn’t without it’s challenges, thankfully the rest of the decade was slightly more normal.

In 2005, Simon joined the business after graduating at university having studied business and marketing.

He had some previous Porsche experience as seen in the pictures below.

Not many people can say that their first car was a LeMans winning Porsche 936, even if it was a miniature.

New Porsche models were well received and as volume grew, it meant we needed more space again.

In 2008 we were granted permission for the new development as seen below.

As per the spirit of Kit and Jim, as all of our development challenges were going on. Porsche were busy looking at the next motoring frontier so to speak.

We’ve had hybrid vehicles since the 2010 Cayenne Hybrid but 2019 brought the launch of the Taycan.

The first all electric Porsche, but not the first using electric in Porsche's history. Between 1900-1905 they had the Lohner-Porsche, the first hybrid vehicle which was ahead of it’s time.

Seems fitting that around a century after Kit installed an early petrol pump that we turned on one of the areas first superfast chargers.

Porsche has given the Parker family an enormous amount of fun over the years. We have a lot of wonderful customers many of who have become friends. 

We have a great team working for us and are in a fantastic place for what is in store for Porsche in the coming years – lots to look forward to.