Welcome to our family business. 

Lancing Commercial is a family run, independently-owned commercial garage in Spencer Road, Lancing, West Sussex. Established over 40 years ago, the Torricelli family provide hands on day-to-day management of the business and its customers and actively supports the local community, including Chestnut Tree House and St Barnabas Hospice. We have built strong, lasting and trustworthy relationships with our customers, having become one of the prime independents in Sussex in our chosen markets of truck, van and motorhome.

A bit of history
Lancing Commercial was started by Alex Torricelli in 1973. Alex arrived in the UK in 1968, having trained and worked as a mechanic in Switzerland and Germany.

After five years working for a large commercial vehicle repair and bodywork garage in Shoreham UK, Alex decided to take the leap and set up his own business, working initially from the back of his old J4 van.

In 1976, Alex started working on Lancing Industrial Estate (now Lancing Business Park), and in 1978, Lancing Commercial moved to its current site in Spencer Road, where it has operated from ever since.

When the opportunity arose, Alex bought the land and old prefab building he had been renting and in 2003, the old building was demolished and a modern, purpose-built commercial 3 bay workshop, bodyshop, offices and mezzanine area was built.

Kathy and Steve join Dad Alex at Lancing Commercial
Alex’s daughter Kathy joined the family firm in 2003 from Rabbit Group and son Steve joined in 2008, after a successful career as an accountant with KPMG, working in the City and abroad, having worked at Lancing Commercial at weekends and holidays from the age of 14 – 22.
Steve now runs the company and Kathy manages the office and workshop scheduling of Lancing Commercial (Alex took a well-deserved rest from 2020, but can still be seen helping out from time to time). We have built an extremely loyal customer base (ranging from major fleet operators to sole proprietors/owners) as one of West Sussex’s largest independent commercial garages.

Modern technology combined with traditional service
We’ve been investing in state of the art diagnostic tools and software since 2008 with regular software and hardware updates.
In 2014, Lancing Commercial extended our commercial bodyshop capabilities, including an 80ft spray shop with extraction systems.
In 2014 we also moved to cloud based accounting with Xero, ensuring the back office is as efficient as the workshop.

We joined the national Approved Workshop Scheme in 2014, allowing us to offer professional and accredited habitation servicing for motorhomes, in response to a recognised need for a “one stop shop” for motorhome owners.

In 2016 we activated our Google Page, which has gone from strength to strength. We are extremely proud of our 5 star rating.

Not resting on our laurels during covid lockdowns, we performed a full review of our Health and Safety and Employment systems, utilising the services of Peninsula consultants.

We are particularly proud of how we rose to all of the challenges thrown at us during the Covid lockdown periods, operating in the true spirit of a working partnership with our customers, responding and flexing to keep critical suppliers on the move. We truly believe we provide exceptional service that goes way beyond what our competitors can offer.

Given the growing pressure on fleet operators from the DVSA and their views through the Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness, in 2021 we invested in commercial brake testers from BM Denmark, widely considered to be the tester of choice for DVSA approved truck MOT test centres.

Our independence helps keep our prices cost effective
As a family-run, independent business, our management structure is simple and our overheads are low compared to main dealers and franchises.

This means we can make sure our pricing continues to represent value for money for customers of all sizes.

We’re different!
What makes us special? We are a family run business – both in the office and the workshop – so we are fleet of foot. And put simply, we treat our customers as we would wish to be treated.

When we say something will be done, it will be.  Unlike a main dealer, we don’t have a raft of management to go through before a decision is made; if you have an urgent problem, we can get someone working on your vehicle straight away.

We’re independent, so we don’t have allegiances to any manufacturer or supplier and we can tell it to you straight. We’ll always help you work out the most cost-effective solution.

If you’ve got a motorhome, you won’t have to go to three different places for your MOT, vehicle service and habitation service: we do it all here on the same site.