Padgetts of Batley is celebrating 55 years as a Honda dealer and is one of several long-serving partners of the Japanese brand to be featured in the next issue of BDN.
The dealership has become a genuinely legendary name in racing, particularly road-racing at the TT – and especially with Honda. Only a team like Padgett’s would have been able to get an RC213V-S up and running in a month or so for an assault on the TT, as it did last year with Bruce Anstey.
It’s a family business, with current race boss Clive Padgett running the firm’s competition division from the front line. We spoke to Clive about how the incredibly strong relationship with Honda has evolved, from the early 1960s, when his father Peter set the firm up.
“Peter Padgett first saw the Hondas at the TT in 1959 and saw them come back in 1961 and win. He first began selling Hondas through a company which imported them, prior to Honda establishing a dealer network in the UK. Padgett’s is the longest serving dealership in the UK selling Hondas.”
Full story in the April magazine.