Used cars

Cutshaw & Shutt

The Radworth Ringway, by the Thornyholt Roundabout

Cutshaw & Shutt has stood on the grass east of the Thornyholt Roundabout since 1987, or so the fascia says: a claret-and-glass showroom thirty metres by fifteen, squared up to the end of Thornyholt Boulevard so that everybody coming round the roundabout gets a good long look. Three Union flags fly from a brick planter out front, bunting runs from floodlight to floodlight, and USED CARS feather flags lean into the wind at the edge of the lot. The workshop is round the back.

The drive comes in off the Radworth Ringway over a dropped kerb, a little south of the roundabout. Twelve cars stand on the forecourt, one of every model you will see on the roads round here: eight along the rail by the road, four lined up in front of the glass, and the dearest of the lot, a Coalface Black Butch G Whip at £39,995, parked nose-up on the ramp where you cannot possibly miss it. The cheapest is a Postbox Red Pipsley Tiddler at £2,495.

Inside there are four sales desks, a coffee machine, a leaflet rack and the posters. Every car on the lot has its own advert on the showroom wall, and every advert is aimed, with some precision, at the sort of person most likely to fall for it.

Gary Shutt works the floor. He will have asked your budget and what you need a car for before he has let go of your hand, and he has a line ready for every motor on the lot. Sit in it. Go on. Now tell me you don’t feel taller. Every car comes with a story, too, and Gary tells each one beautifully.