Stan is the man at Bilston Regal Motors

He has been in the Black Country motor trade since he was 15 and bought his first car, a Ford 100E, for the princely sum of 10 shillings writes Peter Carroll.

Stan Jukes started out as a mechanic, worked his way up to salesman, and is now general manager for the same family-owned group in Bilston where he has been employed for the past 37 years.

Stan's base these days is Regal Motors' impressive new showroom in Oxford Street - but if he looks over the road he can still see the site of his first job, nearly half a century ago.

And he can still recall how little he was paid when replied to an Express & Star advertisement for an apprentice mechanic and was taken on by Bill Littleford.

"It was a very different industry in those days," recalls Stan, who was brought up in Moxley and attended Holyhead Road Senior School.

"There was no minimum wage and I got paid ninepence an hour."

Auctions

His chance to move into sales came about when Star Motors, where he was working at the time, was taken over by Regal founder John Jackson - and Stan moved too 'as part of the furniture'.

Mr Jackson regularly used to take Stan to auctions and gave him his first job in sales at his Central Motors business. "He was truthfully my guardian angel," says Stan. "He was a very astute businessman and if you listened to him you learned a lot."

Stan started selling Yugos - cheap and cheerful Fiat-based city cars assembled in what is now Serbia.

"We used to do them at £2,995 and there was no shortage of takers," recalls Stan. He was then offered the chance to "join the big boys" and work at Regal, a Peugeot dealership.

"This was the era of the 205 - one of the most popular hatchbacks of all time. "The 205 was a great car. It did everything and we sold a lot of those."

Both city and sports models were good but Stan cites the diesel as perhaps the most impressive. "That car was fantastically economical and Peugeot is still at the forefront of diesel technology to this day."

Not all the cars he was given to sell were so easy to shift, however, and the hardest was the Talbot Tagora.

It was conceived as an upmarket luxury model, but once What Car? had put the boot in by referring to its "complete blandness of style' the Tagora was always going to have its work cut out.

"It didn't seem to appeal to anyone," says Stan. "It didn't fit the time."

Of the modern era he is most impressed by the Peugeot's elegant RCZ sports coupe. "It's a beautiful car and has gone down a storm with our customers," he says.

Over the years, visitors to Stan's office, ranging from customers to senior Peugeot execs, have become familiar with the unusual seating arrangements he would employ to indicate his mood during the bargaining process.

If he was happy with the way a deal was progressing visitors would be shown to an armchair in his office. If he was not happy they would be shown to the couch instead.

"They all knew the couch," he says.

He explains that while he expects customers to haggle he should not be expected to sell cars at a loss.

Showroom

"There comes a point where you have to stop. We have to make a profit to survive and keep reinvesting in the business."

And the latest investment in Regal involves a major £350,000 refurbishment to turn it into the first of Peugeot's "Blue Box" showrooms in the country.

Regal, now run by Mr Jackson's daughter, Jane Taylor, has set a template for showroom design which will in due course be followed by all of Peugeot's 250 UK dealerships.

The new-look premises were officially opened by the head of Peugeot UK, Jon Goodman, last week.

"It's all part of treating the customer as they would wish to be treated," says Stan, who has spent much of the last nine months overseeing the refurbishment. They want good service and nice premises - and ours look fantastic now,"

Now aged 62 and living with his wife Norma in Coven, Stan feels the business is "harder" these days.

"Customers are more clued up because of the internet and they want expertise. They also want to be looked after and treated properly.

"But if you do a good job people will stick with you. We've got a good retention rate here. We've got people who have had five or six cars from us."

Stan's customers will no longer face the ordeal of the couch - he was persuaded to get rid of it as part of the showroom refurbishment.

But he says he is still looking forward to doing many more deals.

"After 47 years, I think it's clear that I love this business."