Halfords said the deal would allow it to benefit from a trend towards older cars on Britain's roads and that once it had integrated Nationwide's 224 outlets it would roll-out a further 200 centres in the coming years, creating over 1,000 jobs.

"The total number of cars on the UK roads is going up despite the fact that new car registrations are down," said Halfords chief executive David Wild.

"That just makes a 9 billion pound market even more attractive because clearly older cars do need more servicing."