129 replies to this topic

[leroy26]

anyone know how many there were/ names of them?
specially round bham!

[Bungle]

i will start you off with 2 in Cornwall

Dales and Carlyon bay

[Bagpuss127]

Cowies were in Yorkshire, Eric Stead in Wombwell, Eyre Brothers in Barnsley, (I was an apprentice auto electrician there in 1982).
I believe Lookers were in other parts of Yorkshire as were Appleyards.
Sorry it's not birmingham, but I grew up in Barnsley

[Noah]

Lookers in Basildon.

They still exist actually, selling Land Rovers and Range Rovers.

Think they we're Rover not Austin Rover though?

[old original]

i will start you off with 2 in Cornwall

Dales and Carlyon bay

+Hicks @ Truro, Globe @ Quintrell, Wadhams @ Bodmin, and others at St.Cleer nr Liskeard and one down at Newlyn but I can't remember the names of those

[MrBounce]

There was Bryans Garage in Clacton - I used to live behind it. It's now a Vauxhall/Renault dealers.

[CMXCVIII]

Patrick Motors Group were the big Leyland dealers in Birmingham in the 1980s

And John Leek's All Electric Garages in the South of the city.

[leroy26]

thanks guys keep em coming! tracking down my cars history

[mab01uk]

'University Motors' in Epsom was my local long gone BL Dealer, in the 1970's there used to be a long queue waiting to be served every Saturday morning in the parts department when most owners did their diy mechanics.......they also had a special BMC/BL Special Tuning counter where you could buy or dream about the goodies you would like to bolt on your Mini and Peter Beadle the Parts Manager could recall most part numbers straight from memory without even looking at the parts books or later microfiche's! (and he owned a white 'Cooper S' Mini Pickup)

Extract from "The Structure of British Industry"
"With a product as expensive to buy and maintain as a car the distribution networks efficiency and accessibility can be a crucial competitive weapon. In order to try to establish dealers of nearer to optimum size, especially in terms of sales per outlet, UK car makers shed 7,000 outlets between 1970 and 1977. Austin Rover (BL) accounted for 4,600 of these. However, grateful importers snapped up 4000 of these outlets and the ease with which they established their networks illustrates how by their action UK car makers removed a barrier to foreign firms entering the UK market. By 1980 almost 50% of sales outlets were in the hands of importers. This was a major factor in explaining why the foreign car is in such an entrenched position in the UK market, especially in the private motorists sector, where accessibility to a service point is often important. In the mid-1980's this position remained largely the same. This is reflected in a nearly constant import penetration between 1979 and 1986, during which time a further, if limited, erosion of the UK firms dealer networks ocurred: in 1980 the UK makers had 4,680 dealer outlets, but by 1987 this was 4000, with Austin Rover accounting for the bulk of the reduction yet again."


Not University Motors......just a nice period photo of Peppers of Stoke Ltd, Campbell Road Showroom & Workshop:
(1965 - the Mini registration is 879 YVT)

Edited by mab01uk, 05 September 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[leroy26]

thats fab info!!

[The Principal]

Southern Counties Garages in Crawley, one at Three Bridges is now a Blockbusters and the one in West Green is a brown field car park used to have a great parts department back in the 80's everything you ever needed on microfiche

Edited by The Principal, 05 September 2012 - 06:04 PM.

[Cooperman]

My old friend and rally buddy Peter Silva had his BLMC dealership taken away in 1977. He then took a Mitsubishi dealership and they were so supportive. I recall helping him at an open-evening when I did the test and demo driving in a Mitsubishi Coupe and frightened the punters by driving around Burnham Beeches in the dark very quickly. So he went from selling a load of junk to selling a quality produced car range.
BLMC were their own worst enemy really.
After being heavily into Minis until 1966, when I wanted a new road car to replace my 998 Cooper I bought a new 1966 Cortina GT. It was just so much better and no more expensive than a Cooper 'S' 1275. It was more reliable and had a better cruising speed too.

[leroy26]

blasphemy cooperman!!!

[Cooperman]

blasphemy cooperman!!!

In 1966 I was doing a 30-mile each way daily commute from Hitchin to Cambridge, plus driving all over the place to rally starts and home again so I needed a car with longer legs. My wife had a Mini 850 so we were not 'mini-free'.
I was a 'Ford' man for many years having two 1600E Cortinas, a Mk.3 2000GT, a Cortina 2000E and a couple of Granadas including a 3-litre Coupe. For work a BLMC car really was a bit 'iffy' due to their poor build quality. When they acquired Rover and jaguar those marques went to the dogs as well. I had a Jag XJ6 in 1978 and it was very unreliable. That turned me on to BMW's and I've had them ever since 1980. My old BMW 7-series was the best tow car for taking the Minis to & from rallies I've ever had.

[miniyellowmini]

In Wolverhampton there was Hartwell Charles Clark. Where I bought my first car a Mini Neon

Building looks in a sorry state now though