GSF Car Parts CEO reaffirms commitment to garages live on BBC Breakfast News

Steve Horne, CEO of GSF Car Parts, the UK’s fastest growing motor factor, has spoken live on BBC Breakfast 9th April 2025 on the implications of tariffs for the aftermarket.

Steve vowed GSF will do everything possible to soften the blow to independent garages as the impact of the trade tariffs unfolds.

Steve said live on BBC News: “This is going to reverberate across the whole automotive industry, not just for car manufacturers, but also for aftermarket including distributors of car parts, because the tax is on parts as well. The whole supply chain could be disrupted, and that’s where GSF plays its part in trying to mitigate those disruptions to the hard-working independent garages.”

GSF Car Parts invested over £100 million in 2024 and continues to grow rapidly. Developments included the opening of a new 500,000 square foot national distribution centre (NDC) in Wolverhampton which is now supplying its network of over 200 branches every day.

“Our NDC ensures we have strong capability to be agile and react. It gives us industry-leading availability as we can source from global manufacturers anywhere in the world and hold buffer stocks to mitigate any disruptions. The action on tariffs shows just how essential this resilience and flexibility is to ensure we can deliver best possible value and service to our independent garage customers.”

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturer and Traders’ (SMMT) figures, the automotive sector directly employs 813,000 people in the UK[1] but each of those jobs supports a further 2.2 jobs in adjacent sectors. With the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggesting a most recent figure of 36.8 million jobs in the UK[2] this means 7% – or 1 in 14 – of all UK jobs depends on automotive, with the vast majority of these being within independent garages.

For more information about GSF Car Parts visit www.gsfgroup.com.

  1. SMMT data
  2. Office for National Statistics data

 

Image L to R: Steve Horne (GSF), Ross Toomey (SMP Europe), Ben Boulos (BBC), Mark Field (IAAF)

Watch the full clip here: