AFTER three years of planning and construction, Mildura Motor Holdings has opened its new Fifteenth Street site.
While a few spanners were thrown into the works during recent months — with the news General Motors would retire the Holden brand, followed by the coronavirus pandemic — the new dealership forged ahead.
“It was a double whammy, but we’re probably lucky because we have a strong Holden following and we were still holding Holden stock,” group general manager Paul Shelly said.
“Even today we still have an extensive amount of models left in the Holden range to sell … plus we’ll continue to be the (Holden) servicer and parts distributor for the area.”
Mr Shelly said despite many businesses struggling due to the effects on business of the coronavirus, the new dealership was operating at full strength.
“Certainly our parts and services area have been very busy, given the restrictions on travel and people not leaving their house,” Mr Shelly said.
“There’s been a lot of internet traffic and inquiries happening from around our area and we are getting sales out of those inquiries.”
On Monday, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries reported that nationally, car and commercial vehicle sales were down 48.5 per cent in April, to just 38,926 due to COVID-19.
However, Mr Shelly said while there had been a decline locally, it was not so large.
“The Mildura market was certainly down given the current market trends but I wouldn’t think it would be to that extent — it certainly wasn’t the evidence in this business that we were down by half.
“In fact out of all of our brands across our group and the Davison Motors group, we had five brands in there that finished in the top 10 nationally in volume.”
The multi-brand business moved from its former site at the corner of Deakin Avenue and Ninth Street to the new site, which incorporates a showroom, full workshop and an extensive range of new and used cars.
“It’s certainly a different environment,” Mr Shelly said. “We’ve obviously brought two companies into one, being Hutchinson Motors, we retired that brand and brought it over to Mildura Motor Holdings
“So there’s a lot more people on site and a lot more activity.”
He said the business was operating five and a half days per week and, while it had brought all staff across from the previous site, it could bring more onboard once the pandemic started to settle.
“Until we can get back to everybody moving around freely again we’ll keep the current staff and wait for the market to be fully functional again and then we may look at growing the business a little bit more, depending on which areas require extra hands.”
