RILEY - DEALERS

as Old as the Industry, as modern as the Hour
Today it is barely possible for any car manufacturer to sell its products direct to the public. However, at the dawn of the motoring age, when Riley launched it's Royel Riley, that may well have been exactly what they did. Soon, however, as the product was proven and news of it spread, it would have become increasingly difficult to sell to people from further afield, and so distributors were slowly appointed across the country. By the mid 1920s, it seems that Riley, like many other marques, had a distributor in every major town and city across the country, and many smaller locations too. Remembering that these were distributors, where all but a few would have only had one or two examples of new cars for the public to view, the rest done via catalgoues and brochures, unlike the modern dealerships.
Whilst it is, therefore, obvious that over the forty years of the independent company, there must have been several hundred sites across Britain selling Rileys, few are commonly known of, and most are long forgotten memories. Even post war, as Nuffield then BMC rationalised, the presence of a Riley distributor may have been forgotten as they could be little more than a dark corner at the back of the Austin-Morris showroom.
Below are details on a few of the dealers that have been identified:

London Showrooms

It seems that Riley owned and ran their own showrroms in central London. For many years, located at 42 North Audley Street in Mayfair, they were the flagship sales centre for the company, and would have featured a wide range of cars for the well-heeled London buying public to view. Today the building still stands, and is the Truc Vert restaurant set between Grosvenor Square and Oxford Street, just a short walk from Selfridges. This was an expensive address!

Hector Dobbs

Hector Dobbs was a Riley dealer who also proved to be a very good racing driver who built a number of specials, including the famous single seater that survives today. To add to his fame in Riley circles, he bought the only Lynx 16/4 produced, another unique car which still exists.