Rootes Maidstone revisted

[Etretat]

Some interesting footage, but the video is VERY long!

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/inside...

[Brinyan]

Thanks for posting that video. Wonderful old building that I’ve passed many times. Fascinating - hope the contents/paperwork gets saved

[Quags]

Interesting post, been in there many times over the years, didn't realise it had even closed as I don't live near Maidstone anymore.

[5pen]

Thank you for sharing that. I had my 306XSI serviced there back in the mid-90s.

[2xChevrons]

All very interesting and poignant stuff.

I do find it fascinating that Rootes went from being a single-site car dealer in Maidstone selling Singers to being a globe-spanning car manufacturer (with something like 15 global manufacturing/sales subsidiaries and (IIRC) nearly eight million square feet of factory space around the world) before collapsing back to being just a name on a car dealer in Maidstone selling Peugeots within the space of a lifetime. That's an incredible corporate rise-and-fall - much more stark and compelling than the British Leyland saga which gets told and re-told ad-nauseum - which rarely gets properly looked at. Especially because, while BMC and BL was basically a garbage fire from the moment they were created, the Rootes brothers did almost everything right and it still didn't work!

[neutral 3]

So interesting ! But can you just imagine how ££££ much a developer will have to throw @ that building and just how ££ much an apartment will cost there!