The brothers behind South Africa’s biggest used-car success story

Adriaan Stephanus Scheepers (Faan) and Dirk Jacobus Floris (Dirk) van der Walt are the masterminds behind WeBuyCars, one of the largest pre-owned car trading platforms in South Africa.

Over the course of 24 years, the brothers went from mending cars to creating a business that is now estimated to be worth more than R10 billion.

An early interest

The Van der Walt brothers grew up in Bronkhorstspruit, Gauteng, with their mother and father who worked as a teacher and a security guard, respectively.

The family got around in an old car that was prone to frequent breakdowns, which led the pair to learn how to mend vehicles at an early age with their father.

This matured into a general interest in the inner workings of automobiles, with Faan and Dirk spending much of their spare time tinkering with mechanical components.

Faan subsequently bought his first motorcycle, a Yamaha XT500, in 1988 while still in high school but sold it shortly thereafter.

He purchased the bike for R400, and after making a few touch-ups, was able to sell it at a profit for R450.

He later managed to replicate this success with a second bike, which he bought for R800 before selling it for R1,400.

These two instances later became the inspiration for what would ultimately become WeBuyCars (WBC), though it would still be several years before it became the business we know today.

Faan enrolled at the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1992, achieving a qualification as a teacher before emigrating to the United Kingdom for two years.

The foreign currency he earned during this time later contributed towards the initial capital investment in WBC.

Over a similar period, Dirk would obtain a degree in marketing, which would prove to be invaluable in the establishment of their new business.

Getting started

WBC officially launched in 2001 as a small enterprise managed entirely by the two brothers.

Dirk wanted to create a website for the company, which Faan initially thought was unnecessary, bearing in mind that internet usage was not nearly as ubiquitous back then as it is today.

In any case, Dirk won his brother over and the pair eventually decided on the name WeBuyCars, since it is easy to remember and tells visitors everything they need to know about the site.

WBC pitched itself as a service, allowing vehicle sellers to come to them with a model before it made its way onto the market, which in turn let the brothers curate cars that could be tailored to clients looking for something specific.

The sales platform was a big success, and it continued to grow over the course of the next decade, leading to the Van der Walts purchasing their first piece of land in 2010.

The new site, located in Pretoria East, had a warehouse that could accommodate up to 100 cars, greatly scaling up the business’s operations.

It wasn’t long before WBC exceeded this warehouse, either, as six months later the brothers bought the adjacent land to expand their interests.

By 2012, the company had the facilities for up to 700 vehicles, which was the point when the brothers finally decided to hire additional staff to help manage the demand.

It was at this point that WBC became a nationwide success, as it opened its first additional branch in Cape Town in 2014, followed by several smaller outlets in cities across the country.

The biggest expansion to date came in 2017 when the company acquired the Car Supermarket in Midstream, Gauteng, which at the time was the largest showroom on the continent with room for 1,100 models.

Even this site was not sufficient to keep up with demand, and WBC soon purchased the TicketPro Dome in Randburg, transforming it into Africa’s largest car sales location with a capacity of 1,300 units.

Where WeBuyCars stands today

Today, WeBuyCars is an incredibly successful business that generates more than R23 billion in revenue annually.

It buys and sells more than 13,000 cars per month, and the average model is acquired for R119,854 before being sold again for R141,170.

It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and has an estimated worth of over R10 billion.

WBC is still growing, too, as it plans to open yet another facility in Cape Town that will eventually dwarf the record-breaking Dome with a new capacity of over 2,000 vehicles.

This is in addition to several smaller projects, such as opening a new outlet in Vereeniging and purchasing land in Montana, Pretoria to build another site with the space for 1,000 units.