Car yard closure too hard to bear
A FAMILY-owned car sales business is selling its Grovedale yard after trading there for more than 60 years.
The bulldozers will move into Major Car Sales next week to flatten the yard to make room for three new industrial units.
The business will move to a new unit at 8 Lewalan St.
Owner John Major Jr said he was planning to go on holiday today as watching the car yard being demolished would be too upsetting.
In the past, the business was run by his father John Major senior and uncle Max Major.
“It will be too hard for me to watch,” Mr Major said yesterday.
“It’s amazing how many people over the course of time have had some affiliation with this business.
“They’ve either had a car repaired here, bought spare parts or bought a car — it’s been an icon for many years.”
Mr Major said it was a difficult decision to sell the site.
“Even my father when he was still here was being approached (by developers) constantly,” he said.
“In the end I was doing a lot of the turning down on his behalf but to sustain this financially was impossible.
“Between council rates and state revenue, everything I earnt from the businesses was going to pay them.
“If that didn’t play such a big part of things, I would have been happy to stay here for another 30 years.”
Mr Major said that in its peak in the late 1970s, the business employed up to 45 people.
“Dad had a lot of people in with him, police and so on, and they used to have these big Christmas parties back then,” Mr Major said.
“They were all drinking away one year and they got a call for an accident.
“Everyone was too under the weather to go out so one of the coppers said ‘I’ll go’ so they chucked him the keys and he went out and picked up the car.”
Mr Major said he would keep many of the old vintage signs for his personal collection, but other pieces would be sold to collectors.