Parts Pro: Meet Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia, Founder of Euro Car Parts

A Journey from Uganda to the UK and Beyond

When Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia was just 13 years old, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin issued an order that would change the course of his life. He claimed to have been instructed by God to expel the approximately 80,000 Ugandan Asians from their homeland. The family had 90 days to leave.

As a child, Sukhpal had developed a passion for cars by accompanying his father in a MkI Ford Cortina to the three Total petrol stations that the family owned in Jinja, a city 50 miles east of the Ugandan capital Kampala. However, they eventually arrived at RAF Greenham Common as refugees with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

A year later, they were resettled into social housing in London. Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

“Can you imagine the cars that I saw in London at that time? That was the first thing that struck me,” he recalls. “There were Jaguar XJ6s and E-Types, big Mercedes saloons. Everything was here. It was just like a dream.”

Sukhpal spent his teenage years working hard. He took on paper rounds in the mornings, shop work in the afternoons and evenings, and on weekends he worked at Portobello market on Saturdays and Petticoat Lane on Sundays.

“The markets introduced me to the idea of commerce, buying and selling, customer relations et cetera, but menial tasks didn’t bother me at all. Cleaning toilets or whatever, I’d do it to make some money.”

He eventually saved enough money to buy his first set of wheels. Like many others, it was a Yamaha F1S-E moped at 17 years old.

“One day it broke down outside Dutch & Dutch Commercial in Cricklewood. It was raining so heavily, I ran into the shop to stay dry. I pretended to look at properties, but one did actually catch my eye. It was a car accessories shop that they were trying to sell the lease for.”

In the time it took Sukhpal to source £5,000, the business went bankrupt and closed, but when it reopened under his management, he extended the hours and never said no to a potential customer.

“Whatever you wanted, whether it was a spark plug or an engine, it’d be a yes. Then we’d figure out how to get it.”

The shop was a success, and Sukhpal satisfied his petrolhead instincts by buying cars at auction, fixing them up, and selling them on. He describes it as his hobby.

“I was buying sporty, interesting things like a BMW 320i, a 635CSi, Triumph Stags and TR7s. I had a good network of mechanics who would fix them up, and then I would take them back to auction a couple of weeks later.”

Sukhpal rebranded his shop, changing its name from Highway Autos to Euro Car Parts... you can see where this is going.

“To fast forward a 35-year journey, we went from one warehouse and specialising in European cars to opening outlets in Birmingham and Manchester, then supplying parts for all kinds of cars across the country. We became the biggest car parts distributor in the United Kingdom, employing nearly 6,000 people.”

After selling the business in 2011 for what he describes as ‘a fair price’ (£225m upfront, with a further £55m in potential bonuses), Sukhpal remained on the board until he ultimately fell out with its American owners and left in late 2018.

The plan was to focus on the real estate business that he had started with his three sons, but in 2023 an opportunity arose and Sukhpal found himself as executive chairman of one of his former competitors, GSF Car Parts.

“We’ve owned it for nearly two years now. We grew revenue 21 per cent in the first year, and another 20 per cent in the second year. We’ve injected energy into the business, invested money, changed systems, bought new vans. With us, the people on the ground are the priority.”

This is a man who knows his car parts, which is lucky given the collection of classics he now owns. Alongside a modern BMW i7, Bentley Mulsanne and Ferrari 296, Sukhpal also owns an XK140, an E-Type, many drop-top Mercs, a few Ferraris and a Porsche 911 Targa.

These cars won’t be here forever, because Sukhpal now plans to retire to India, and take his collection with him.

“One of my dreams is to create a rally that goes from the north to the south of India. And generally, if I get behind something, sooner or later it happens. It’s difficult to drive classic cars in India. They’re now allowing the cars to come in, but you can’t drive them on the road unless it’s part of a rally or something similar. I want to meet with politicians to see if we can change that and create even more of a classic car culture in India.

“For now though, I want to drum up interest in a cross-country rally and for people to get in touch if they’re keen. I really want to make it happen. I’d love there to be hundreds of cars. That would be a fantastic sight.”