‘Everyone has got a story to tell about Ken Thorne whether it is good or bad’

THE death of flamboyant car tycoon Ken Thorne aged 75 at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, has put the spotlight on an Icarus-like story of ambition and collapse.

Thorne was a pipe fitter who worked his way up from the streets of Grangetown in Cardiff to become a popular businessman and philanthropist after getting the car sales bug when he sold his wife’s old MG for £215 in 1964.

His advertising spending changed the second-hand car trade in Wales’ capital and he grew his empire to include four showrooms in Cardiff, Swansea and Neath, the pinnacle of which was the monument to his ambition that would arguably be his downfall – the giant Ken Thorne World of Cars showroom on the capital’s Penarth Road.

With his name emblazoned on Cardiff City’s shirts in the early 2000s and his high-profile love of powerboating, which led to him making headlines again when he had to be pulled from the water after a dramatic collision, he was a flamboyant success story.

Yet one month in the autumn of 2002 changed everything.

From the day the shutters went down on the then 61-year-old dad of four’s showrooms, when Barclays refused to extend a £750,000 finance facility, that reputation he and his family had worked so hard to cultivate started to evaporate.

From appearing a testament to the charisma and hard work of a family who loved the spotlight, his empire started to look far more like the product of rash, ill-judged ambition for which others were left to pay the price.

It was not just the 230 staff of his car dealership empire who were left fearing for their future.

As the days passed after the shock collapse of his firm into liquidation, more and more stories emerged of customers and small businesses who looked set to lose sums of money they could ill afford.

Some customers had paid thousands for cars they then discovered they did not own because Thorne’s firm had not paid for them.

Others had paid deposits for cars they would never receive.

Small firms, including mechanics and parts suppliers, lost thousands.

A company called Balloon Artistry produced balloons for his showrooms and were owed £4,000.

When the liquidators had finally finished their work, nearly two years later, it was revealed that Thorne’s empire had £15.4m total debts and a deficit of £5.1m.

If Thorne’s family had appeared to be suffering like the many customers and small businesses who lost out, that might ultimately have been forgiven.

Yet the revelations put paid to that. In the weeks after the collapse, as creditors received the news they were unlikely to get any money back, it emerged Thorne was on holiday in Spain.

A year later his son Nigel told reporters that his mum and dad were thinking of rebuilding their lives in Italy.

Ultimately, they chose Dubai to live out most of their days.

It later emerged that his wife Maggie, who had little role in the businesses, was collecting a salary of £78,000 a year even as the showrooms were collapsing under the weight of their debts.

His sons Nigel and Andrew faced criminal proceedings.

Nigel was jailed for three and a half years by a Southwark Crown Court judge in April 2009 for a series of frauds totalling more than half a million pounds, undertaken in