DAN GEOGHEGAN
CEO, BICESTER HERITAGE
DAN GEOGHEGAN, FOUNDER and CEO of Bicester Motion, has since 2014 led the creation from scratch of a thriving classic car business that today generates £100 million a year and promises to do even better as it progresses a unique plan to link mobility’s past with its fast-changing future.
Geoghegan says the idea struck him during a period of ref lection after a serious accident in 2013: he set out to establish some kind of bigscale meeting venue in Oxfordshire for car and aviation enthusiasts with a similar passion to his own.
Using a characteristically thoughtful approach and proven skills at start-up companies, he found and acquired the former RAF base at Bicester, a 600-acre site with a remarkable retinue of pristine 1920s buildings, whereupon his idea became a reality as Bicester Heritage.
Soon he had several dozen likeminded tenants with similar goals, providing action and attraction in a place that grew rapidly as a busy, favourite destination for car lovers of all persuasions.
The real potential of the idea was unleashed when Geoghegan and his team launched plans to use the attractions to draw in other businesses and to divide the huge site into four separate quarters: Heritage; Wilderness for day visitors and campers; Experience for drivers and the car companies who need their custom; and Innovation for start-up technology businesses seeking new premises in a savvy, tech-aware environment.
Development is far from complete, but a vital brick in the wall was recently added when localauthority approval came through for the Experience centre, always likely to be the most controversial because of its driving circuits, active airfield and 4x4 track.
Back in the 1920s, RAF Bicester was a national showpiece, a hub for developing and testing the biggest developments in aviation. Geoghegan reckons it was “almost the Google headquarters of its day”. He firmly believes it can be an ideal environment for inspiring technical progress today, as it did in its first golden age a century ago.