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MG TD TF 1500 - Australian MG Dealers in the 1950's

I have cataloged the following Australian dealers but could use help with more.

P&R Williams, Pty., Ltd.
74-78 Wentworth Ave, Sydney

P&R Williams, Pty., Ltd.
364 Hunter Street, Newcastle

P&R Williams, Pty., Ltd.
268 Oxford Street, Sydney

Barclay Motors, Pty., Ltd.
85 William Street, Sydney

Comet Motors
918 Hay Street, Perth

Motors Ltd.
Gilbert Street at Norman, Adelaide

Howard's Pty Ltd.
317 Adelaide Street, Brisbane

Arrow Motor Company
26 Flinders Street, Adelaide

Lanes Motors, Pty., Ltd.
89 Exhibition Street, Melborne

Stillwell & George
12 Cotham Road, Kew
Christopher Couper

Chris

I went onto the (Aust) National Library website (Trove) where a person can search most old Oz newspapers. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

I entered "MG" and filtered down results to "Sydney Morning Herald", "Advertising" and "Decade 1950-59".

Here is part of the first advert I came across.

Image in next post is an enlargement of company names.

Stuart


Stuart Duncan

As mentioned in previous post


Stuart Duncan

Stuart. Thank you. I found one dealer the same way but should have stuck with the site more :-)
Christopher Couper

And here is the Brisbane (QLD) advert for MG TDs by Howards Ltd of May 1950.

Sorry the image is not the best, I am capturing it on a laptop. Using a larger screen would provide a better image.

Second post is enlargement of Company name and address. (Not they are also in Toowoomba (about 1 1/2 hrs (125km) west of Brisbane)

Stuart


Stuart Duncan

Chris, I didn't see your post before putting last post online. I use the site quite a bit for Family history research. A person can even go in and edit text (on which the search engine works). They currently have around 13,500,000 pages digitised (going back to the first OZ newspaper) which can be searched.

Here is an enlargement of company info from last post image.

Do you want me to post images here or send direct to you?

Stuart


Stuart Duncan

Chris

Here are two Adelaide companies, no mention of TDs just MG Cars. advert dated 26 Sept 1952

Motors Limited
CNR. FLINDERS ST. & GAWLER PL. ADELAIDE

Kingsway Limited
118-120 Franklin St, Adelaide

Advert included.

Stuart


Stuart Duncan

Nice research Stuart!

Matthew.
M Magilton

This advert (bottom half) of 9 Feb 1950 from Benalla, a town in rural Victoria (200km nth of Melbourne), mentions "MG midget, MG 1 1/4 Litre" along with other Nuffield vehicles it sells.

The Meadows Garage
177 Bridge Street, Benalla




Stuart Duncan

Nearly every major country town would have had an agent who could order in an MG for you. It is hard to know where to draw the line between distributors, main dealers and agents I suppose.

Matthew.
M Magilton

I agree most Australian country towns in the 1950s would have had a Nuffield dealer, selling: Morris, Wolseley, Riley and MG cars, plus Morris and Morris Commercial trucks.

I have found the attached Nuffield advert in a large number of newspapers - without any specific company/ agent mentioned. (In most cases the advert is either - 1/2 or 1/4 page)

Stuart


Stuart Duncan

Yeah. I saw the same advert too. To be fair this sort of thing went on in the Americas too pre BL. If you look at the America's dealer list, there are a lot of PO Boxes, no streets, persons names etc, especially in Canada.

I think Nuffield was trying the saturation bombing approach to selling cars. Even some of the respectable dealers got their start selling cars by mail order with no showroom or service capabilities.

This is one of the reasons I think BL took over control in the later 50's and 60's. They also kicked out many of the importers such as Hambro and went directly to dealers that carried their brand only.
Christopher Couper

This is an advertisement for 2 Adelaide (South Australia) dealers.

Question for Matthew - you have done a lot of research on Australian TFs. Did they often arrive as an UNEXPECTED shipment, or were these bound for somewhere else and the boat driver got lost?

Ian
TF4056



Ian Fry

Well spotted Ian, I had not seen that before.
I expect that imported TF's were regular orders, looks like one of the other importers was either having trouble moving their stock (unusual) or possibly had financial difficulties. Could even be New Zealand bound stock. Could also be a sales ploy of course.

Matthew.

Advert comes from a 1955 race programme from the Gnoo Blass circuit, Orange, NSW, kindly sent to me by Stephen Dalton. This would be a typical local town agency.


M Magilton

Another one of Stephen's. This was on a 1955 Bathurst race programme. Barclay's were one of the major Sydney dealers.

Matthew.


M Magilton

Motors Ltd and Kingsway seemed shaky.

Unexpected Shipment????? I think not.

They were just a few blocks away from each other and seemed to co brand. Also in just a few years they bounced around town and this latest address for Kingsway moves them from town center to a neighborhood.



Nice find on Blowes and Strachan and the images will get posted in due time on the advertisements page.
Christopher Couper

Stephen sent me another add from the September 1954 edition of Modern Motor magazine featuring a Z series Magnette. Here is the dealers list from the bottom of that page. I had not seen Heathorn listed before, usually it is Lanes Motors that cover Tasmania.

Matthew.


M Magilton

Thanks for the tip Matthew. Once again Stuarts treasure 'Trove' comes through.


Christopher Couper

This thread was discussed between 18/06/2014 and 21/06/2014

MG TD TF 1500 index

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