Grant Thornton motor retail partner Preston Ayres has retired from the firm after 33 years.

GTUK colleagues, along with dealer group principals with whom he had worked over the years, gave Ayres a send-off at Arsenal football club, where the England-Croatia Euro 2004 game was displayed on a giant screen.

Guests took turns to be pictured holding the League Cup that the football club won earlier this year. Besides his long-standing devotion to Arsenal, Ayres is a rally enthusiast, and expects to spend more time behind the wheel in retirement. He is succeeded as Grant Thornton UK motor retail partner by Paul Burrows, already familiar to GTUK clients and to other dealers as a regular speaker on retailer performance issues at AM conferences.