The Story of Hillwood Autos

Nigel Ainge began his career in the motor trade when he became an apprentice at Cutlers of Streetly, the main Austin Agent in the area, where he remained until he had completed his training.

Already, he had ambitions of running his own business and so in 1962 he established Hillwood Autos, working from his home in Hillwood Road, Sutton Coldfield, repairing friends’ and colleagues’ vehicles.

Over the next few years Hillwood Autos grew in size and reputation and in 1968 it became part of the Police Recovery Scheme in the area, which in turn led to the business expanding into accident repairs.

In 1980 Nigel went into partnership in a second business running a fleet of commercial vehicles with Hillwood Autos taking over the repair and maintenance of those vehicles. This in turn led to the development of the commercial vehicle workshop to run alongside the car repair business.

By 1988 the business had outgrown the site at Hillwood Road and a new site was purchased at Blake Street in Four Oaks to accommodate the commercial vehicle repairs and the recovery whilst the car repairs remained at the original site. The business operated from these two sites until 1998 when the opportunity arose to purchase our present site in Tamworth. This allowed all the business activities to be brought under one roof on a 1.5-acre site and an opportunity to develop the MOT test centre.

By 2002 the centre was established, testing all types of vehicles for both local and national customers.

We now use a trusted third party for our recovery services.

Technology now plays a large part in the repair of vehicles and the business is still expanding in this area, with diagnostic equipment for both cars and commercial vehicles.

To find out more about Hillwood Autos or to book your vehicle in with us, call 01827 280870 or contact us online. We’ll be happy to help.