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I have loads of old ads saved in my flickr account but I'm a board newbie/technophobe so couldnt get them to work. By then something good had started on telly etc.

 

Please post more! Love the buses and printed ads. Brings back memories of walking to the pertol station on a Friday for the latest motor market weekly! Do they still do that?

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Re the reply about Curtis Motors having an interest in Premier Vauxhalls Sighthill Edinburgh, I'm not sure how but that's been Pendragon owned for years upon years, (Pendragon own Evans Halshaw and Stratstone) and owned Premier of Edinburgh long before they took over Reg Vardy and renamed all their dealerships to Evans Halshaw, at which point Premier of Edinburgh was renamed Evans Halshaw for unity, a bit like Watson of Airdrie which was also owned by Pendragon for years, I actually think both could have been taken over by Lex, certainly Watson of Airdrie was taken over by Lex and renamed Lex Vauxhall Airdrie as my uncle had a mk3 Astra from there, after Lex sold off a lot of their dealerships Pendragon bought those 2 and reverted them back to their original name until the Vardy take over when both became Evans Halshaw along with the Vardy dealerships.

 

Regarding Cupar and Dalkeith Ford Centres, my understanding was that they were taken over by Bramall Laidlaw (an amalgamation of CD Bramall and Laidlaw dealer groups) who themselves were then taken over by Pendragon as well, round about the time they took over Reg Vardy they had a cull of a lot of smaller dealerships and loss making ones, and I believe the Cupar and Dalkeith dealerships along with another in Pittenweem were closed and someone reopened the Cupar and Dalkeith ones later, Cupar Ford was originally on both sides of the road at Eastbridge in Cupar before taking over the Curtis Motors premises in Eden Valley Business Park.

 

Hamilton Bros weren't taken over by Reg Vardy, their Paisley branch was originally a Fiat dealership at a time when AFG Nissan was at Renfrew Road in Paisley, after the AFG and Nissan fallout AFG became Fiat and Hamilton Bros lost the franchise and moved to Proton and Nissan, AFG was then taken over by Caledonia who were taken over by Reg Vardy who were taken over by Pendragon who sold the dealership to Arnold Clark which it is now. Hamilton Bros then lost the Nissan franchise when Phoenix built a Nissan showroom in Linwood, I can't speak for their Stirling and Edinburgh showrooms but Hamilton Bros car dealership side went into liquidation in the late 90s when it had a Proton and Perodua franchise in Paisley and a Fiat dealership in Coatbridge, I remember an ad in the Sunday Mail selling off their stock cheaply by the administrators after the business went into liquidation.

 

Does anyone remember a Fiat dealership in Dollar? My dad had a Fiat Uno reg B535SLS in 1989 which was apparently a Stirling area reg so either came New from Hamilton Bros in Stirling or the Fiat dealer in Dollar but their name escapes me.

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In the 80s/early 90s there was a Peugeot dealer in Bathgate just along from the driving test centre.

I think it moved to another location later on, then became a Verve and now a Park's. Interestingly, the test centre is now closed and has been turned into a fecking beauty parlour, ffs.

 

Anyway, this dealer had a gorgeous 205 1.9GTi in miami blue - the best colour as all those advert say - and I lusted after that car for months.

Around the same time my cousin bought the same model in graphite or steel grey.

I was dead jealous.

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  • 2 weeks later...

#I just joined, to say...

 

Frews of Invergordon were a Ford dealer up until the late 90s I think. Fond memories of following the old man in there, and the parts desk man at the controls of the microfiche machine.

 

I clearly remember they had a cracking cutaway poster of the 1993 BTCC Mondeo.

It was Victoria garage in Invergordon? I worked there when The Mk1 Focus was launched. That's where I became an MOT tester too- they had branches in Dingwall and Brora as well..

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Ps Re: the ex Arnold Clark Volvo dealership at Kirkcaldy on Abbotshall Road, which I believe was closed due to the council placing a compulsory purchase order on it to use the land for additional council offices, who owned it before them?

 

Also on the subject of Fife, were Flear & Thomson the Kia dealer in Dunfermline and until recently also Nissan dealers, ever franchised for Fiat and Vauxhall and if so what period?

 

Anyone from Fife know anything about Curtis Motors Vauxhall? From what I can find out the guy who owned it was called Gordon Curtis and at one point had a dealership in Bathgate? He also had showrooms at 2 Carnock Road in Dunfermline, Dalgety Bay and Cupar and in 1997 acquired SVL Vauxhall in Kirkcaldy on possibly Victoria Road, then I think they must've had a weird fall out with Vauxhall where they seemed to lose the new Vauxhall cars Sales franchise but kept the Network Q used cars part, Vauxhall Masterfit service centres, warranty work, service, repairs and parts department, so basically kept everything Vauxhall except new cars, last new Vauxhalls they sold were 56 plates. They changed names from Gordon Curtis Motors to Curtis Motors Cupar and Steve Curtis Cars, the Kirkcaldy branch closed down and Peter Vardy built a new Vauxhall franchise in the Mitchelston Ind Estate in 2007, the Dunfermline branch was raised to the ground, the Cupar branch lost Vauxhall sales but kept everything else Vauxhall, and the Dalgety Bay branch was the one that changed name to Steve Curtis Cars and lost Vauxhall sales but kept everything else Vauxhall plus a Chevrolet new car sales franchise, then in 2014 Peter Vardy took over Dalgety Bay and changed it back to New Vauxhall sales again, and the Cupar branch changed to Cupar Ford Centre who moved there from elsewhere in Cupar and now Curtis seem to sell used cars by appointment somewhere in Perth. Seems a bit mysterious how they suddenly lost all Vauxhall sales franchises at all 4 sites but kept everything else so not a complete fall out with Vauxhall, closed 2 of their 4 sites, and changed their name slightly.

 

I worked for Flear and Thomson Vauxhall in Leslie, and Reekie Motors in Cupar. Reekies was a long standing family owned company, and had very loyal customers. When I was there they had to add on Vauxhall Masterfit,which didn't really take off, then I believe Vauxhall pretty much demanded a huge glass showroom, and I think they were told to FRO..They closed the Vauxhall bit not long after..probably lost magabucks on the Masterfit white elephant.

 

Norman Rollo Volvo were accross from the Adam Smith theatre in Kirkcaldy where the Esso station is now- I remember the workshops being underground with the showroom on top. There was also a Rootes and Datsun dealership in Cupar don't know anymore than that..

 

 

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I really want someone with insider knowledge of Nissan to tell me why they binned off Arnold Clark completely and Flear & Thomson Dunfermline and SDM Nissan in Falkirk, Western and John Clark Specialist Cars swooped pretty quickly to fill all the open points left with the demise of those 3.

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Anyone remember the above garage? It still exists as a Vauxhall dealer even now, I'm told that at one point it was Jackie Stewart's garage (yes the F1 racing driver)

Yes. It was the family garage. He's from Milton, just east of Dumbarton.

 

post-19900-0-53020600-1485041467_thumb.jpg

 

Sport Motor Racing. pic: 26th May 1966. Dumbuck, Dumbartonshire, Scotland. "Great Britain's Jackie Stewart in his garage after arriving back from Monaco, where he had won the Monaco Grand Prix."

 

Here's a bit of history about it:

http://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/leisure-parks-events/museums-and-galleries/collections/people-and-personalities/people-and-personalities-dumbarton/individuals-dumbarton/jackie-stewart/

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Thanks for correction re SAAB dealer, Georgeinabz picked up on it too. Long time since I lived there, early 90s, they were just doing the stop start traffic lights on the roundabouts last time I drove on Ellon Road.

Handy place to live at the time for visiting the autoshite car auctions at AEC on Tuesdays.

Aye, I sold a few cars on the night of the auction parking them outside the gate with For Sale signs in the window!

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Off the top of my head, dealers in the North-East - Grange Garage (Vauxhall -Peterhead), Schrader (Vauxhall - Fraserburgh), Bayview Garage (Ford - Peterhead), Macrae and Dick (VW - Peterhead), Ringway Motors (Nissan ,- Peterhead), Victoria Garage (Skoda - Maud), Lawrence of Kemnay (Vauxhall), Sandy Thain (Vauxhall), Clyne Autos (Fiat - St Fergus)

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Jeez... well, well late to this, and I doubt I've anything to add to the comprehensive list so far...

 

I worked for Halleys for a few years: decent firm to work for, and a family business too. The Halley fire engine that's in Glasgow Museums collection is their history, from when they had a factory in Yoker. Now an outpost of that wee bluenose cunt Arnold Clark's empire.

There used to be a Ford garage across Milngavie Rd from us: I'm struggling to remember the name of it, but the bloke Brownlie who ran it was a nice enough guy, and it was very old school.

I used to deliver all around the Greater Glasgow area (and further afield now and then) when I worked for Halley's parts dept, because we made a habit of stocking obscure old crap that nobody else wanted, and asking £££s for it when it was actually needed. These were the days when knowledge and phone numbers trumped the fledgeling internet! Let's see if I can mind some of the old VX garages...Queen's, SMT/Lex/SVL...nope, mind's gone.

I remember Lindsay's at Dumbuck well: getting out of there into traffic could be interesting.

First time I went to Dunfermline, it was to deliver to Curtis, when they used to be up Carnock Rd beside MFI.

Had a falling out with Queensborough Mazda, on account of the £850 they wanted for a carb for my dad's 626. They wouldn't even sell me the diaphragm that I knew I needed, but the lads at ScotBike in Gt Western Rd sorted me an identical one with a Kawasaki part number for 50p!

Don't think I've seen Glen Henderson's Porsche in Westerton mentioned: that was always a pleasure to visit. Their parts chaser was an Astramax, so I'd get them service kits etc for it, and make sure I went in through the showroom. Although, the workshop was very much worth an eyeball. They were authorised service agents for Ferrari and Lambo too iirc.

Probably my favourite place in the Glasgow garage trade at the time was Hardie and Inglis bodyshop. There can't have been many other places that handed a tatty DeLorean to the yoppers as a project, and expected them to get it to showroom standard! And what a showroom...! Classic supercars, Rolls etc.

 

If I can think of anything else useful, I'll add it in.

 

EDIT: Have we had Colin + Austin Thomas, and Drymen Volvo yet? They had the Volvo dealerships for Bearsden and erm Drymen respectively. Both very nice middle clarse areas, and although DV had possibly the poshest showroom in the West (it had white chuckies outside, which were never dirty), the brothers Thomas had a garage tucked away down a lane, behind the Indian at Bearsden Cross. Very old school. Last I saw them, they were on The Boulevard in the no man's land between Clydebank and Knightswood.

 

EDIT 2 (accounting for intermittent brain function): I'm sure CMS206 will have mentioned County Motors in Johnstone. They did sell Vauxhalls (among other things) which was how I got to know them. But they were one of the old school ones that went distinctly anti-corporate and told VX to ram it in the early 90s - as an aside, that's how that wee bluenose cunt Arnold does it, the wee brown-nosing prick - so their showroom was more of a museum than a showroom. Some nice bikes in it iirc: Kawasaki strokers, Ducatis...

What I didn't realise was that their parts store went back to nineteen canteen. So when Halleys agreed to buy the lot off them, yours truly was dispached to Johnstone to collect in the trusty Midi. That I had to go back twice after that, with a box trailer on the back, might give some idea of how extensive it was. And that was after we'd thinned out stuff we didn't want or need!

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Jeez... well, well late to this, and I doubt I've anything to add to the comprehensive list so far...

 

I worked for Halleys for a few years: decent firm to work for, and a family business too. The Halley fire engine that's in Glasgow Museums collection is their history, from when they had a factory in Yoker. Now an outpost of that wee bluenose cunt Arnold Clark's empire.

There used to be a Ford garage across Milngavie Rd from us: I'm struggling to remember the name of it, but the bloke Brownlie who ran it was a nice enough guy, and it was very old school.

I used to deliver all around the Greater Glasgow area (and further afield now and then) when I worked for Halley's parts dept, because we made a habit of stocking obscure old crap that nobody else wanted, and asking £££s for it when it was actually needed. These were the days when knowledge and phone numbers trumped the fledgeling internet! Let's see if I can mind some of the old VX garages...Queen's, SMT/Lex/SVL...nope, mind's gone.

I remember Lindsay's at Dumbuck well: getting out of there into traffic could be interesting.

First time I went to Dunfermline, it was to deliver to Curtis, when they used to be up Carnock Rd beside MFI.

Had a falling out with Queensborough Mazda, on account of the £850 they wanted for a carb for my dad's 626. They wouldn't even sell me the diaphragm that I knew I needed, but the lads at ScotBike in Gt Western Rd sorted me an identical one with a Kawasaki part number for 50p!

Don't think I've seen Glen Henderson's Porsche in Westerton mentioned: that was always a pleasure to visit. Their parts chaser was an Astramax, so I'd get them service kits etc for it, and make sure I went in through the showroom. Although, the workshop was very much worth an eyeball. They were authorised service agents for Ferrari and Lambo too iirc.

Probably my favourite place in the Glasgow garage trade at the time was Hardie and Inglis bodyshop. There can't have been many other places that handed a tatty DeLorean to the yoppers as a project, and expected them to get it to showroom standard! And what a showroom...! Classic supercars, Rolls etc.

 

If I can think of anything else useful, I'll add it in.

 

EDIT: Have we had Colin + Austin Thomas, and Drymen Volvo yet? They had the Volvo dealerships for Bearsden and erm Drymen respectively. Both very nice middle clarse areas, and although DV had possibly the poshest showroom in the West (it had white chuckies outside, which were never dirty), the brothers Thomas had a garage tucked away down a lane, behind the Indian at Bearsden Cross. Very old school. Last I saw them, they were on The Boulevard in the no man's land between Clydebank and Knightswood.

Do you know what happened that Halleys were stripped of the Vauxhall new car sales franchise in 2003 but kept Vauxhall after sales and then started selling new cars from slightly obscure makes like Subaru, Isuzu, Daihatsu and Suzuki before gaining a Ford franchise in 2009?

 

I heard they sold to Arnie as they were struggling to make a profit but still own the premises and just lease them to Arnie? Arnies are now trying to pass it off as a proper Vauxhall new car sales dealership but the signage isn't official Vauxhall corporate identity and I suspect their cars are either pre reg from other Glasgow Arnies Vauxhall branches or if a punter wants a new Vauxhall it's sourced officially from one of them and just "delivered" to the customer at the Milngavie branch.

 

As a side note, is it the same Halleys who run the caravan showroom "Halleys of Burnhouse" in Ayrshire?

 

I remember Colin & Austin Thomas as an independent Volvo used cars specialist in that most of their stock was used Volvo but I didn't know they were once a proper Volvo dealer.

 

Hardie & Inglis I've been in several times with work but it's now called Mitchell Inglis and has approved repairer status for all the VAG brands plus Porsche, Ferrari and Lambo but I'm told their quality of workmanship isn't anything special.

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The position with Halleys and GM was never simple: because they were a family firm who'd been selling GM here since day one, they weren't afraid to pull the strings they had. Because GM had UK distributorship (effectively) for Isuzu and Subaru too at one point, Halleys were offered both, but turned them down. They also retained some grandfather rights to Opel and GM USA sales and service, which they had occasion to use now and then. For instance, there were the odd few Yank tanks and Corvettes/Camaros round that way, so they could offer official service, although in practice, nine times out of ten the parts came from Bauer Millett!

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the family were fleecing Arnie for £££s, although I can't say what the true story is, I've lost touch with the people I worked with then. They do (or did) indeed do the caravans down at Burnhouse. They used to do boats too. They also had a pet tuner installed in the garage at Burnhouse (whose name I can't recall), who'd been Ralph Halley's spanner man during his sprint/rally career in the 70s. (It was how Ralph was colloquially known to staff as Half Rally...) This guy knew a lot of folk in the rally world, and had become an Irmscher approved tuner in his own right: this was Halley's way round being denied a 'high-performance' dealership. It was almost like a weird under the counter thing; if a customer so much as sniffed at the Irmscher catalogue (the proper one, not the stick-on tat with the 'i' logo on) or suggested they'd like a GTE that was just a bit (or a lot) quicker...it was a case of 'well, sir, we could...'. I brought some very interesting cars back to Milngavie from there, some of which had disappeared over the border to a certain Malcolm Wilson for a brief visit...!

I wouldn't imagine they're getting their hands dirty these days: apart from Gordon, and Ralph's elder daughter, whose name I forget, they were either getting old or not interested in the business of selling cars. They probably leave it to the sharks to fight among themselves, and pick up rents or something like that. Wonder if Ralph's still got his very early Healey 3000? He used to really freak out if any of us plebs went near it...

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Gordon Halley was the general manager/dealer principal of the dealership under Arnold Clark ownership for the first couple of years after they took over in 2012.

 

The caravan showroom in Burnhouse still exists and still has the Halleys name on it but whether they own it or not I'm not sure, seems an odd thing to do, run a car dealership, and a caravan dealership, and run them nowhere near each other, they must be what30/40 miles apart?

 

I heard that the land Homebase is on was once Halleys land too and they either rent that to them and sold it to them, as a result it looks like the Ford showroom has been plonked in the middle of a DIY store car park.

 

See when it was solely Vauxhall, were both showrooms I.e. The one on the main road AND the one in the Hombase car park both Vauxhall new car sales showrooms??

 

There's another tiny wee office thing at the back of the "petrol station canopy" type thing on the main road which Arnie have plastered with signs about service plans, extended warranty and gap insurance, what was that?

 

I seem to remember them having a body shop too because when I worked in the hire car game I dropped a car there for a customer who's own car was going into Halleys for repair but Arnie must've binned it off because it doesn't feature in their body shop list on their website.

 

I think by the time they had lost Vauxhall sales and began selling new Daihatsu, Isuzu, Subaru and Suzuki the importer for all but Suzuki was IM Group. If you ask me, Vauxhall really fucked up losing Halleys from new car sales, as the appointment of them by Ford as sales dealers proves, but Ford seem to care less about the showrooms than Vauxhall, it's more about customer service and how many units sold with Ford, Vauxhall are shafting too many dealers over glass and chrome palaces which admittedly a lot of manufacturers are guilty of but Ford have been appointing lots of small family run dealers in Scotland who's premises by anyone's standards are in dire need of some renovation as they haven't been touched since the 80s.

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When I was there (91-93) in theory both upper and lower showrooms were for new cars, but in practice they used to go through phases of having 'interesting' cars in the upper one. The rationale was that it was behind the Network Q stuff out front, and the intended front of house was actually the lower showroom. The 'interesting' stuff that I can recall, were all used, and included a then newish Nissan 300ZX, a Supra Turbo and Jack Halley's old Merc 420SE. The car park was where the non Network Q stuff went so the traders (and anyone else who asked) could see it.

The garage layout then, was upper and lower showrooms, workshop to the left (if you were looking at it from Homebase) with the parts department behind that; the yard, and the remaining old shed against the wall of the sawmill yard, was valeting. The petrol station shop was built onto the retaining wall when all that was excavated (in the 50s I believe), such that it was perched on top of a building you couldn't see from the road, which was offices at one point, but was storage when I was there.

We still had a septic tank there then, believe it or not! My how we laughed when one of the lads from Kelvin Timber dreeped over the wall to get their ball back, and went straight through the decrepit concrete lid. In summer, when the pit was long overdue a clean out.

The DIY shop started out as WH Smith Do-It-All, was Texas Homecare when I was there: the land belonged to the garage, because that's where the bodyshop and the parts dept used to be. The field over the back of West Of Scotland RFC where the caravans are/were was theirs too, as I think (and I could be wrong here) was part of Murray Park. They've made a bob or ten out of land over the years, safe to say. Probably still are.

Incidentally, if you look up stuff on George Bennie's Railplane, it ran from the sawmill, and some of the aerial shots give you a proper idea of how big that plot of land was: the sawmill and the burn were essentially the boundaries of it.

 

I'd agree that VX shot themselves in the foot losing a dealer like that: the short term gain of increased numbers (I was at Dickson's Honda in Aberdeen, when they lost that franchise to Anderson Cars in similar circumstances, so I get how that happens) doesn't compensate in the long run for customer loyalty, which they had in buckets. You just can't buy that, you can only earn it.

I'll need to go and have a look next time I'm over by: my mental map is probably well out by now!

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