It all started at the turn of the century when Rob's great grandfather started a stable on the current site. His son, H L Willsher in turn took over and ran a successful agricultural machinery repair business from the site. Southampton was still miles away and all around the area were lots of fields and working farms. With his son Trevor, this was expanded to include the repairing of the now more popular motor car and Victoria Garage was born. Trevor unfortunately died in the war which left the younger son Dennis to work along side his father instead of the boat building which he had trained to do. Petrol pumps arrived in the early fifties, Den's wife Mollie served the petrol while Dennis fixed the cars.

Rob Willsher Motorcycles was born. He started out, with friend's Roy Pitcher and Kevin Hill, buying and selling a few used bikes, doing the odd repair and selling Triumph spares. New bikes were bought from Ken Heanes in Aldershot, (mainly Yamahas!) One Sunday in 1972, there was a chance visit to the petrol station by a boat owner who had his boat moored on the nearby River Hamble. He saw the motorcycles in the old workshop (the current showroom) and left a card, saying he would get a rep to call. He was none other than Peter Agg, the "then" owner of Suzuki GB. Next morning the Suzuki rep, Graham Goodman, arrived, and Rob Willsher Motorcycles have been a Suzuki dealer ever since.

In 1974 the business was bought by the Guilmant family, old friends of the Willsher's who had also lived in the village. Fred Guilmant had recently sold his family business, Fairway Motors, where Rob served his apprenticeship. Fred, along with sons Tom and Mike and daughter Valerie now took over. It was decided to retain the name and to expand the Suzuki business. Mike ran the sales, Tom the parts business and workshop, Val would do the paperwork and Fred would cook the books. After a few years they were offered a parts distributorship from Suzuki, so Rob returned to run the spares in a new building out the back. (the current workshop) The new shop front arrived in the late seventies, replacing the old and very rotten old wooden workshop doors.

Among many helped and sponsored riders at that time were Melvin Soffe on a speedway bike, Dave Morris on his first Suzuki, and "Ramesees" a Triumph engined drag bike. 

 In the early eighties Michael decided on a change and went off to Somerset to run a pub. Business expanded - more staff - more extensions. In the late eighties, during the boom years, a second branch was opened in Salisbury, run by local lads Rob Graham, Brian Godwin (Taff) and Steve Ling (Flash).

Team Pink (the staff race team) was founded 1990 and raced RGV250's for a couple of years. Darren, Martin and Pete rode them along with racers Dave Morris and Gavin Lee, who also raced a Pink GSXR at the TT.

Then came recession and hard times. Salisbury closed. Sales hit an all time low! The registration of motorcycles fell to lowest level for twenty years. Hard times indeed. (Useless fact: more bike were sold in March 1999 than in the entire year of 1990!)

The nineties however, saw steady growth and business soon returned to and exceeded the levels before recession. New computer systems, new floor, new ceilings (but no new roof!), new counters, new MOT bay, ram raid posts to name but a few improvements. 

New signage at the front and the final removal of the petrol pump island improved the facilites.

Moto X bikes returned in 2003 with the launch of the 4 stroke RMZ250. Sponsorship continues with a Hayabusa drag bike ridden by Len Paget along with product support for many local riders.

2007 sees the merging of Rob Willsher's with the Crescent Motorcycle Co, which creates one on the largest outlets for new Suzuki's in the UK. As Rob W now has his planning permission to put up flats on the site, we will be moving later in the year, so watch this space for full details.