Richard Walsh has always had ambition. However, Richard’s hopes were more of a mission, more of a passion than that of his classmates. Even from an early age, he knew he wanted to own a garage and he knew he wanted to compete in top motorsports events. According to Richards tutors, his dreams were just that, dreams. He was not going to be a rally driver or a businessman, and was told to concentrate on Maths and English. Richard, however, had other ideas...
While still studying for his exams, schoolboy Richard Walsh used to work at a local golf club near Manchester cleaning cars. The car-cleaning job enabled the young petrol head to get up close and personal with some lovely cars and at the same time he pocketed enough money for his first car. This job fuelled his passion for all things four wheeled. Reading about his rallying heroes of the day, Mikkola, Clark, Hopkirk etc, Richard continued with his dream of competing in rallies around the UK. With cars already running through his veins he left school and went straight into a Vauxhall dealership in Manchester as a young and very naive salesman. Experience soon came and at 21 he became the youngest sales manager in Vauxhall dealerships. Behind his desk in the showroom there was always a copy of Motoring News and he made regular trips to some of the larger national rallies, still dreaming of the day he would be taking part.
