FAO Scottish Shiters

[hennabm]

Cordiners in Inverness were Ford.

James Ferries were Peugeot

Ness motors were Renault

Calterdon were BMW. Their name came from the three brothers who started it - Calum, Terry and Donnie.

I can't remember the name of the Lada dealer but he was in Seafield Road in Inverness.

 

Brian McGregor was for a while the Kia agent.

 

Hawco were VW/Audi

 

SMT were Vauxhall and in an old building on the outskirts of the town centre.

 

Donald McKenzie were Fiat

[Lacquer Peel]

Bannerman/Ken's Garage, SEAT and Peugeot in Inverness and Kildary, I believe they're still independent.

 

I think you can still order a new Ford from Woodlands in Grantown on Spey, and there was Grant's of Aviemore which is long gone, also Ford.

[kinkersaab]

Oh, and bill and ben the yugo men, aberdeen, there used to be still a yugo sign on george steet must look again see if its still there....

 

Fountain garage skoda, near to tayne of this place. Now great northern motors

[BavarianRetro]

Appleyard were big too. I think Appleyard were in the original Ian Skelly site at Bogside.

[brickwall]

Western Saab/Volvo

Went titties to the sky, though.

 

Helensburgh Toyota

 

Sutherland Arms Brora - Vauxhall.  Family place.

 

Volvo Cars Perth - imaginatively titled

 

Thomas and Potter - Skoda in Perth

 

Struans of Perth- can't remember the make.

 

Grassicks Bini/beemer - perth.

 

That's all off the top of me head.

[oldcars]

Fairfield Kia in Dundee, think there a shark now too.

[kinkersaab]

Adrian smith Saab aberdeen, (daihatsu too for the last few years) cousins of cordiners ford aberdeen i believe

[kinkersaab]

Norman fairweather, dundee lada? I think he is now at duthies montrose citroen...

[hennabm]

Volvo in Inverness were Autosales. They had a great team in the body shop. Gordon Thompson was the manager and Frank was the sprayer.

[kinkersaab]

Callenders mercedes aberdeen, be ame john weir, now, you guessed it...arnie shark....

 

Morrison brothers Peugeot aberdeen there was a pic of it recently on here......

 

Smt vauxhall opel aberdeen, now odbins in aberdeen.

[Lacquer Peel]

 

Macrae and Dick in the centre of Inverness, before they moved out to the Longman I guess. Most of these buildings have been demolished.

[Lacquer Peel]

 

Now they've just ruined it. Where's the CLASS?

 

TK Maxx, Sports Direct and some flats.

[Barry Cade]

Bannerman/Ken's Garage, SEAT and Peugeot in Inverness and Kildary, I believe they're still independent.

 

I think you can still order a new Ford from Woodlands in Grantown on Spey, and there was Grant's of Aviemore which is long gone, also Ford.

I worked for Bannerman's in Tain for a bit, then Victoria garage in alness.they had a branch in Brora and dingwall too. Riverside motors FSO in alness too.

[delux]

It took this thread to convince me to register, LOL!

 

I dont have any pics, sorry!

 

I grew up in Livingston where I remember Tennants Vauxhall in Bathgate (Later Curtis motors, now a Factory shop)

I remember McClaren Austin Rover in Uphall (Later LEX Rover, now AC Fiat)

In Livingston we had Peoples Ford (Still there) AFG Nissan (Then AFG Renault, then Renault UK, now some sort of motorstore)

There was a McAndrew Citroen near the hospital briefly, its now a Co-op. Mcandrews were bought out by Eastern western.

 

I remember Archers in Edinburgh and Airdrie, they sold Lada and Proton etc. Their Edinburgh garage became a Hyundai dealer and is now Macklin motors Hyundai. Their Airdrie garage became a Suzuki dealer then disappeared when Parks opened their Suzuki dealership up the road.

 

From what I remember Appleyard were bought out by Lex who rebranded some of their dealerships. When Lex disappeared AC bought some of their garages and Pendragon bought others (Like the Jaguar garage in Edinburgh)

 

Many of the directors of dealerships AC has bought have appeared as directors with AC. Queens Vauxhall or Dalblair Ford in Ayr for example. Other garages that were loosing money were offloaded to Arnold Clark too, Ingram VW in Paisley (Ingram are still in Ayr) Kerr and Smith Vauxhall in Ayr (Kerr and Smith are still in Glasgow and Cumnock)

Arnold Clarks garage equipment and tools division, grew out of the loss making Prossers Rover garage in Glasgow (the Prossers family sell boats round the corner!)

 

Parks do a similar thing, They bought over the large Renault dealership in Motherwell (which was MacKay and Jardine). The son of one of the original owners is the property director for Parks now.

 

Verve were the ashes of Ian Skelly VW. Their Bathgate operations were originally Motorway cars (from Lanark). Their Kilmarnock garages were bought from Robert Wyper after he went bust.

 

Glenvargill were indeed owned by the same family who made Drambuie. Drambuie's owner was a car nut. Back in the day if 2 companies had the same directors they could offset the losses of one company against the tax of another. They figured the best way to make a loss was to open a car dealership! They started in Cupar with Mercedes and Fiat then expanded. In the end the sons were not that bothered about cars so the garages were sold off. I work with a guy who worked with them for 30 years. He says they were great but there was no way anyone could have made them profitable.

 

Eastern Western had a period of growth the past few years opening at Halbeath as mentioned before in Glenvargills old garages but have cut back recently giving up Alfa, Seat and Suzuki in Colinton, Edinburgh. They used to own Westcars SAAB in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr and Perth. The Perth SAAB dealer was taken over by its service manager as an Independant SAAB garage, the Ayr one was bought out by one of their salesmen (Cant remember the name of it but he became the SAAB dealer in Inverness too). Nowadays it is Parks Suzuki.

 

Out of breath now! I probably got something wrong and have forgotten loads which will probably come back to me...

 

[hennabm]

The Saab dealer in Inverness I knew was Caberfeidh motors.

[Lacquer Peel]

This boring list of dealers is fine and well, but please find some pictures.

[bramz7]

King & Sons in Aberfeldy was a Subaru and Isuzu dealer, they were going until early/mid 2000s, then it became a Subaru specialist garage and then it became some exploration shop, then it got demolished and the whole lot is a massive Co-Op now. 

 

No photos on Google, because apparently all Aberfeldy has is whisky. 

 

My dad bought two Subarus from them, both times when we were on holiday. A 1990 Legacy 2.2 in 1994, and then he traded that in for a 1995 Impreza 1.8 GL (Estate) in 1997. The guy who owned the garage loved it when he was visiting. 

[delux]

oh, yeah, Ian Skelly. Ian Skellys family were Ford dealers (I think I am spelling that right, its not Skelley is it?)

Anyway, he fell out with them and started selling VW, becoming Europes biggest VW dealer (on unit sales per garage). He sold up and moved to Portugal. Garages were sold to AC and Verve.

Bored of sunshine and golf he returned and opened the Ian Skelly motorstore in Motherwell. A massive place selling ex-avis cars. Anyway, he got bored again and sold the lot to AC who opened more motorstores.

 

In Dundee there was SMT Vauxhall at the docks that became LEX Vauxhall and is now AC Vauxhall. And Camperdown motor company, Merc dealers, now AC.

 

From what I remember, when AFG failed in the early nineties Nissan were giving out dealerships to anyone. AC took over dealer and stock allocation and put loads of them out of business. Belmont (JM group), Parks, Phoenix in Paisley and Weir all lost out. They all got together and sued Nissan. They won which paid for Phoenix to expand and John Wier to open a Merc and VW dealership in Grangemouth. John Wier is now AC. 

 

Phoenix was started by the sales manager from AFG east Kilbride.

 

Arnold Clark Vauxhall in Livingston was built by JM group as Belmont Nissan, then Belmont Hyundai/Mazda. It was then taken over by the former owners of Jones FSO and opened as Bradley Fiat. It didnt last long before they ran out of cash and opened as AC Nissan.

 

Longstone motor company of Edinburgh are still going. Their original garage was sold to John Clark who rebuilt it as Pentland Land rover. Its now a Clark used car centre (John Clark, Not Arnold Clark)

 

JM group used to be a major player with places from the Borders to Inverness. Unfortunately John Martins son and heir was killed and John Martin seemed to lose interest.

[Spiny Norman]

I remember there were quite a few car showrooms around the west end and city centre areas of Glasgow where I grew up.

My Dad used to buy his Renaults from Wylie & Lochead in their old traditional garage type place in Berkeley Street, before they relocated to a big plate glass purpose built showroom in St Vincent Street.
Also in Berkeley St at the Charing Cross end were McHarg, Rennie & LIndsay, who at the time sold BL stuff. I remember going in there as a kid to see the then new Rover SD1.

Queensburgh Motors in Clarence Drive, who IIRC sold Mazda, then half a mile down the road at the junction with Crow Rd, Westcars the Saab dealer.

I used to walk past a Mercedes Benz showroom every day on my way to school, Callendars I think they were called, on Great Western Road at Southpark Avenue.

Way along at the end of Great Western Rd was a whole run of showrooms, can't remember the dealer names but they sold VW and Audi, NSU Fiats, and Citroens. Don't think it was all one place, they were separate organisations.

There was a Mazda garage somewhere up towards Maryhill Road too, possibly on Napiershall Street, but I can't remember the name of that one either.

Now I've started thinking about them, more will come back to me.
 

[delux]

Yeah, falling into the trap of a boring list. I have found loads of pics on Flickr but they are not mine. Can I still post them?

[delux]

Queensborough Mazda, Henrys Skoda and Henry Bros BMW were owned by the same family. I seem to remember there was a big fall out and they were all sold off.

Phoenix bought their Honda dealership, Parks bought their BMW one and the remaining Family carried on with Skoda.

[Lacquer Peel]

Go for it.

[georgeinabz]

On another topic , 1988 , bridge of don , Aberdeen

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[messerschmitt owner]

When I was young, Heron Rossleigh had the Rolls-Royce dealership in Stirling.

[Tayne]

Oh, and bill and ben the yugo men, aberdeen, there used to be still a yugo sign on george steet must look again see if its still there....

 

Fountain garage skoda, near to tayne of this place. Now great northern motors

 

 

 

Sign on George St?

Do tell, I'll go and have a look for it.

 

You don't mean the old Dacia garage?

Old Dacia Dealer by Tayne, on Flickr

Dacia by Tayne, on Flickr

 

I can't really add much more to all the above apart from...

 

Fews Ford on Riggs road in Perth (site is now a supermarket).

Grassicks BMW on Leonard St in Perh (site is now flats).

TayFord in Dundee

Carron VW in Falkirk

[kinkersaab]

It was along time ago.....but, from memory. Going from your area towards george street after the Y junction that goes to mount hooley it is/ was about half way down on the left. Flat on a a wall, not obvous, it might have been along a wee lane that linked george steet to whatever the other mount hooley road is called or a court yard...... The guys that had the yugo dealership, later went on to own "rough pubs " in aberdeen. And still dabble in the trade .

[Tayne]

It was along time ago.....but, from memory. Going from your area towards george street after the Y junction that goes to mount hooley it is/ was about half way down on the left. Flat on a a wall, not obvous, it might have been along a wee lane that linked george steet to whatever the other mount hooley road is called or a court yard...... The guys that had the yugo dealership, later went on to own "rough pubs " in aberdeen. And still dabble in the trade .

 

 

Stag Motors, 27 Fraser Place.

 

Its the same building.

 

 

 

 

I'll have a look and see if there is any Yugo signage though.

[colino]

Peter Cannon was, "the big noise in Ford".  Although he bought and sold any second rate crap.  (Flooded Chryslers from Linwood, dodgy reimports from Ireland and Cyprus etc.)

 

Peat Road Motors wanted to be a Lexus dealer and like many, were lead to liquidation by the pre-contract terms (own a suitable site and have planning in place for a new glass and chrome palace) which Toyota then reneged on.

 

Arnold Clark sometimes, though rarely, keeps the original name on the door.  Mainly when they have a stronger local presence, or people want to buy BMWs but don't want an AC sticker on the window.  Sentiment sometimes play a role too though, Macharg, Rennie & Lindsay seems to have kept its name for years, simply because Sandy Macharg was kept on the books.

 

Ian Skelly fell out with his brothers and tried to run his brand new site in the cheapest of chips location by remote control from his tax haven and being a nice guy.  His heart wasn't in it, though Scotland gained a curry chain by the excellence of his customer care training.

 

Phoenix started off great, but they reverted to type (the key guys all escaped from AC and promised to treat customers differently).

[kinkersaab]

I remember seeing it from the george street area, it was perhaps a directing you to sign?

[Tayne]

William Fraser's FSO garage is now a bus depot, and Tower Garage in Abernethy sells used cars (it was a Mahindra franchise at one point).