John Bloor
Businessman and entrepreneur John
Bloor has quietly built two immensely successful
yet very different corporations: Derbyshire-based
Bloor Homes and Triumph Motorcycles, of which he
is both the owner and chairman.
John Stuart Bloor, the son of a miner,
was born in a south Derbyshire mining village in
the early-1940s. After finishing his education at
15-years-old, Bloor began his professional career
working for a local building contractor. Two years
later, Bloor chose to become self-employed, initially
as a plasterer, before taking on a project that
led to him building his first house – all
before he was 20-years-old.
Bloor Homes was conceived over 40
years ago and completed its first house in 1963.
Since then it has become one of the largest, privately-owned
house building companies in the UK, completing the
production of more than 2,000 homes a year, ranging
from apartments to seven-bedroom luxury properties.
By the 1980s the housing business
was well established and Bloor began to look for
a venture that would offer him a brand new challenge.
Specifically he was searching for a manufacturing
business, similar to his housing enterprise in that
it would offer the production of an end product,
but with the opportunity to export that product
overseas. In 1983, shortly after the company had
been dissolved and production had ceased, Bloor
purchased the intellectual property rights to the
Triumph motorcycle marque. Following a feasibility
study Bloor decided to instigate a limited production
of a small portfolio of motorcycles.
Over the subsequent years, Triumph,
while still a niche motorcycle marque, has re-captured
and reinvigorated passion and enthusiasm for motorbikes
both with those old enough to remember the bikes
the first time around as well as a brand new younger
generation. To this day Bloor is heavily involved
in research, development, design and the manufacturing
of the bikes and has seen the company named British
Brand of the Year in the 2004 Walpole Awards, joining
such illustrious company as Land Rover and Burberry.
John Bloor currently lives in Warwickshire
and has two sons.
