NOVEMBER 10, 2004

Prodrive is one of Europe's fast-growing companies

David Richards's Prodrive company is one of the Europe's fastest growing companies, according to Europe's 500, an annual publication of the Europe's Entrepreneurs for Growth organization. It is the highest-ranked automotive business on the list, ranking 66th in terms of growth since 2000. In that time Prodrive has gone from having 450 staff on one site in the UK and a turnover of $91m to being a 900-person operation with sites in the UK, USA, Asia and Australia and now has a turnover of $223m.

"Since 2000, Prodrive has grown dramatically," says David Richards. "While we have continued to focus on building our motorsport portfolio, we have put significant investment into our automotive technology businesses in the UK and overseas. And it is in these areas, in particular, that I expect we will see significant further growth."

More than half of the turnover comes from automotive consulting and technology programmes while the sport continues to provide plenty of activity: Prodrive runs the Subaru World Rally Team, manages the BAR Formula 1 team, runs the Ford Performance Racing team in the Australian V8 Supercar series and recently launched the new Aston Martin Racing programme with the aim of winning the Le Mans 24 Hours.