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BTJustice wrote:Yup, commers had sliding doors.
Dodge Spacevan Royal Mail by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
The Sherpa's were the last to have sliding doors after a post office driver had a heart attack coming over the Kingston bridge, clipped the barrier and went over the side .
The early commers always reminded me of the zeroids from Terrahawks;
Overgrown ball bearing by The Taybor, on Flickr
Dave
RapidAssistant wrote:
Whilst on the subject of Commer, who were the big Rootes/Simca/Chrysler dealers in the Glasgow area - I know a few of them probably changed to Talbot after Chrysler Europe was taken over by Peugeot in the late 70s?
Scotty100 wrote:RapidAssistant wrote:
Whilst on the subject of Commer, who were the big Rootes/Simca/Chrysler dealers in the Glasgow area - I know a few of them probably changed to Talbot after Chrysler Europe was taken over by Peugeot in the late 70s?
Perhaps Melvin Motors?
moonbeam wrote:Maybe we should have an entry for "Dud Cars" I/We/Our friends have bought.That would include a Moskovitch my neighbour bought which at 3 months old went on fire!!
RapidAssistant wrote:moonbeam wrote:Maybe we should have an entry for "Dud Cars" I/We/Our friends have bought.That would include a Moskovitch my neighbour bought which at 3 months old went on fire!!
What a brilliant idea!! - I've started a thread called Dud Cars in Hidden Distractions - so lets blog about some of the heaps we've owned......
Doug wrote:RapidAssistant wrote:moonbeam wrote:Maybe we should have an entry for "Dud Cars" I/We/Our friends have bought.That would include a Moskovitch my neighbour bought which at 3 months old went on fire!!
What a brilliant idea!! - I've started a thread called Dud Cars in Hidden Distractions - so lets blog about some of the heaps we've owned......
Cant help laughing at this. I worked as a salesman for Hampden Cars, the main Mazda dealer in the 70's and we sold Moskovitches and Wartburgs as well as Polski Fiats and many's the laugh we has with these cars especially the Polski which must have been the worst car ever made. I was given one as my company car and me wife darn near divorced me it was so horrid ::):
RapidAssistant wrote:Doug wrote:RapidAssistant wrote:moonbeam wrote:Maybe we should have an entry for "Dud Cars" I/We/Our friends have bought.That would include a Moskovitch my neighbour bought which at 3 months old went on fire!!
What a brilliant idea!! - I've started a thread called Dud Cars in Hidden Distractions - so lets blog about some of the heaps we've owned......
Cant help laughing at this. I worked as a salesman for Hampden Cars, the main Mazda dealer in the 70's and we sold Moskovitches and Wartburgs as well as Polski Fiats and many's the laugh we has with these cars especially the Polski which must have been the worst car ever made. I was given one as my company car and me wife darn near divorced me it was so horrid ::):
Ahh yes - the FSO Polski Fiat, I remember once going down to the car auction in Giffnock (the old Scottish Motor Auctions on Burnfield Road), there was this 3 year old Polonez going through, and the driver was joking to the punters that they'd probably just doubled its value by putting a gallon of petrol in it.
robertpool wrote:Fireman wrote:Giblets On Croute wrote:What abour Weirs the Datsun people. Did they not have a showroom on Dumbarton Road near Byres Road/Church street?
Seem to remember being in there late 80's when it became Nissan.
I remember that showroom if you mean the one at the corner of Thurso St & Dumbarton Rd when it was Peter Holmes, a BL dealer - but that's going back a while.
RapidAssistant wrote:robertpool wrote:Fireman wrote:Giblets On Croute wrote:What abour Weirs the Datsun people. Did they not have a showroom on Dumbarton Road near Byres Road/Church street?
Seem to remember being in there late 80's when it became Nissan.
I remember that showroom if you mean the one at the corner of Thurso St & Dumbarton Rd when it was Peter Holmes, a BL dealer - but that's going back a while.
The Datsun story is an interesting one - those of us may remember that there used to be a whole pile of Nissan/Datsun garages in Glasgow which were all little independents - Bob Rae, Drivers, Weir's, Peter Holmes etc. - they all sourced their cars from a rather infamous eastern European businessman called Octav Botnar, who had built up the whole Nissan import business since the late 60s. Not content with this, in the late '80s he decided to buy out all the little dealers as well, with a promise they'd get a bigger slice of the action. So this new super-dealer was called AFG (which you also may remember), but in truth what happened is that a lot of these little dealers saw their businesses closed and destroyed completely.
Needless to say, Nissan in Japan was none too happy of the situation as their good name was being drawn into the whole mess, and given they now had a factory in Sunderland and an R&D operation in this country, they decided to do a no-brainer and cut both Botnar and AFG loose by bringing the import business in-house and set up their own distribution network as well - primarily by giving new franchises to your Arnold Clarks, your Reg Vardys and so on. They therefore starved AFG of stock, put them out of business and is primarily why all of the original AFG-branded Nissan dealers all seemingly disappeared overnight.
Hendry wrote:RapidAssistant wrote:robertpool wrote:Fireman wrote:Giblets On Croute wrote:What abour Weirs the Datsun people. Did they not have a showroom on Dumbarton Road near Byres Road/Church street?
Seem to remember being in there late 80's when it became Nissan.
I remember that showroom if you mean the one at the corner of Thurso St & Dumbarton Rd when it was Peter Holmes, a BL dealer - but that's going back a while.
The Datsun story is an interesting one - those of us may remember that there used to be a whole pile of Nissan/Datsun garages in Glasgow which were all little independents - Bob Rae, Drivers, Weir's, Peter Holmes etc. - they all sourced their cars from a rather infamous eastern European businessman called Octav Botnar, who had built up the whole Nissan import business since the late 60s. Not content with this, in the late '80s he decided to buy out all the little dealers as well, with a promise they'd get a bigger slice of the action. So this new super-dealer was called AFG (which you also may remember), but in truth what happened is that a lot of these little dealers saw their businesses closed and destroyed completely.
Needless to say, Nissan in Japan was none too happy of the situation as their good name was being drawn into the whole mess, and given they now had a factory in Sunderland and an R&D operation in this country, they decided to do a no-brainer and cut both Botnar and AFG loose by bringing the import business in-house and set up their own distribution network as well - primarily by giving new franchises to your Arnold Clarks, your Reg Vardys and so on. They therefore starved AFG of stock, put them out of business and is primarily why all of the original AFG-branded Nissan dealers all seemingly disappeared overnight.
Did AFG not diversify into other franchises when Nissan pulled the plug, primarily Renault and Fiat?
I'm pretty certain that for example Drivers on Pollokshaws Road became Renault, Leaders on Springburn Road became Fiat Etc then the name changed to Caledonia. Caledonias Scottish branches were taken over by Reg Vardy and gradually some were sold off to Arnie Clarks.
On another slightly different note, did Peat Road Motors run a showroom in Kilmarnock at some point?
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