It was a big day. In January 2026 Franco Santoro, managing director of Chariots Specialists Cars and BYD Kettering made his way to Telford to attend the inaugural BYD Retailer Awards. He came away with the top accolade for a single retailer, UK Retailer of the Year.
The award was presented to Chariots by Bono Ge, country manager of BYD UK and Steve Beattie, deputy country manager. To take a top award is always a great achievement but what made it even more notable was that Santoro, heading an independent used car business, won the accolade in his first year with the brand.
The award recognised excellence across customer experience, brand representation, sales performance and the group’s sustained commitment to supporting BYD’s mission to accelerate the transition to new energy vehicles.
Santoro said: “Chariots are honoured to receive the BYD UK Dealer of the Year award for 2026. This achievement reflects the dedication and professionalism of the entire team, whose commitment to delivering exceptional customer service and championing the BYD brand has been outstanding.”
Motor Trader contacted Santoro and made I way to the dealership – a former Mercedes-Benz business – on the outskirts of Kettering. It has a lot of presence with the BYD logo prominently located.
The award came at a pivotal moment for Chariots following its acquisition of a new dealership in Rugby, Warwickshire, an ex-Suzuki site. The deal also gave Chariots a Peugeot franchise, which was part of the deal and signed off by Stellantis after due diligence.
Santoro has been associated with this site for over two decades. He originally worked there when it was a Mercedes-Benz dealership until 2002. Thereafter, he moved and did a four-year stint with Sytner Mercedes-Benz in Milton-Keynes as an area sales manager. Thereafter, time with Prestige Auto Select, before setting up Chariots in 2011 with two partners. In 2015 Santoro and two partners (no longer involved) bought the building.
So, how did BYD come about. To give some context, lets revisit 2023. When it launched that year BYD immediately attracted the big dealer groups, who ran the rule over the accounts and liked what they saw. Bill Berman, the then CEO of Pendragon was one early adopter. He saw the franchise as a big opportunity.
“They approached us, but they approached a lot of people. They went with large scale dealers that they could go to market with. We are We are fully committed and fully invested. It is going to be exciting,” he said in 2023.
For his part, Santoro had been monitoring events and deliberating on what franchise he could represent from the Kettering site. It made commercial sense. Three revenue streams make sound sense: prestige used car sales, a strong workshop business and the quest for a franchise. He looked first at Xpeng and then BYD entered the equation.
“In 2023, what happened? BYD came out. I saw the brand I fell in love with it. And I thought this could work.”
Santoro did spend some time trying to get BYD’s attention. But, contact was made, they looked at the site, did the due diligence, Santoro got the phone call on 7 February, and the dealership was open for business on 31 March. The sales speak for themselves: the dealership sold 368 new cars in 2025.
So, what has his experience being of BYD in his year with the brand.
“It’s been an absolute joy to work with them. This year marks 41 years that I’ve been in this industry. I have worked with many good brands, but I have never met the founder of any of those brands. Last year. I met chairman Wang (Chuanfu) at the head office in Uxbridge.”
Then last year, we got invited to go to China to visit dealerships out there. And the brand?
“BYD is a premium brand. The build quality is impeccable. The customers love BYD. We’re competing with Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi,” he said:
Santoro held a sales event on 16 May and had 300 people visit the dealership, most of them previous customers he has been dealing with for the past 16 years. He points out that there is less brand loyalty from customers than previously and people will switch if the value and quality is there.
“There is no brand loyalty anymore. That’s gone. People want the best for their money. I had three sets of customers tell me, ‘We’ll come and support you because we like you, but you are not going to sell us a BYD.’ Guess what happened? We did Porsche, Audi and Mercedes part-exchanges. They’ve all got BYDs now,” he said.
He added that there is a diversity of buyers and age groups. A younger generation, for example, is opting for the Dolphin Surf.
So, why does Santoro think BYD Kettering won the Retailer of the Year award 2026. For him, it is a matter of customer satisfaction and company culture. His wife Josie is a director of the company. His two sons Dino and Ayrton work for the business and Santoro is clearly a great customer person.
“We welcome every customer in the business, like a family member. We are one team. We come from the same principles. We have one culture to treat people the way you want to be treated. All my members of staff here and at BYD Rugby operate under that culture. We’ve had to work really hard,” he said.
