Glasgow car dealers in the 60's -70's

[47p2]

It would have been 1972 or 1973 when the car ran up the back of the bus stop

McConnachies Garage is now Eaglesham Garage selling Subaru and Isuzu. McConnachies used to have coaches along with the Vauxhall showroom and the Esso petrol station back in the days when 5 star petrol was 5/- a gallon.

Bert Wardle used to work at McConnachies before he started working for himself in the garage over the crossroads of Gilmour Street, they sold second hand cars and did car repairs. Bert and my father used to do stock car racing and our back garden for full of old Ford Pops in various states of disrepair.

I can't remember the name of the garage owner at Waterfoot but my dad was pals with him



EDIT:

I did have some coach pics but unable to find them but a search brought up a list of coaches they owned

Edited by 47p2 on Saturday 18th November 21:50

[Bogsye]

Fabulous photo! I’m assuming that’s Eaglesham library in the background.

That’s interesting regarding the bus stop incident. I recall a crash there but it was in the time that Paul ran the garage and had to be 87on as that’s when we moved to Waterfoot.

My uncle’s friend restored a car (can’t recall what) and presented it at Eaglesham garage for its MOT. Sadly that coincided with the fire they had.

[47p2]

From memory the library was to the left of the same building, I seem to recall a door at the side was the entrance (though I could be wrong) I think the main door as seen in the picture was some sort of community hall.

Yes bus stop incident was no later than 72 or 73 so maybe another incident in the 80s

I had forgot about the fire at Eaglesham Motors, I think it lay in a state of disrepair for a while afterwards


EDIT:

Queens Garage
By the time I was old enough to drive McConnachies had changed to Eaglesham Motors and were no longer a Vauxhall dealership. I owned a couple of Vauxhalls and bought my spares from Queens Garage, the head of the parts department was Cathy Sharkie who went to school with my father so I got trade prices for all parts required

Edited by 47p2 on Saturday 18th November 23:14

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

It would have been 1972 or 1973 when the car ran up the back of the bus stop

McConnachies Garage is now Eaglesham Garage selling Subaru and Isuzu. McConnachies used to have coaches along with the Vauxhall showroom and the Esso petrol station back in the days when 5 star petrol was 5/- a gallon.

Bert Wardle used to work at McConnachies before he started working for himself in the garage over the crossroads of Gilmour Street, they sold second hand cars and did car repairs. Bert and my father used to do stock car racing and our back garden for full of old Ford Pops in various states of disrepair.

I can't remember the name of the garage owner at Waterfoot but my dad was pals with him

The original owner, or certainly the owner from before the war, of Eaglesham Park was also called Bert, although I can’t remember his surname. I’d love to know when EPG was originally built, his house (next door) is certainly from that sort of period, and I recall someone telling me of how they had built up the land at the rear of the garage using gravel “liberated’” from a council store of it down where the car park at the waterfall is back in the 30s or 40s.

I seem to recall Eaglesham Garage at one point being part of Linn Volvo, can’t remember when though.

What I do recall is my mum taking her Escort up for its MOT one year, and crashing it into one of the showroom window supports. The car fits into the Eaglesham story quite neatly as it was one of a batch of ex-Strathclyde Escorts that went through Intercity Auctions, the other 20 or so be bought by Maurice (?) from the garage up at the cross.

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

From memory the library was to the left of the same building, I seem to recall a door at the side was the entrance (though I could be wrong) I think the main door as seen in the picture was some sort of community hall.

Yes bus stop incident was no later than 72 or 73 so maybe another incident in the 80s

I had forgot about the fire at Eaglesham Motors, I think it lay in a state of disrepair for a while afterwards


EDIT:

Queens Garage
By the time I was old enough to drive McConnachies had changed to Eaglesham Motors and were no longer a Vauxhall dealership. I owned a couple of Vauxhalls and bought my spares from Queens Garage, the head of the parts department was Cathy Sharkie who went to school with my father so I got trade prices for all parts required

Edited by 47p2 on Saturday 18th November 23:14

72/73 sounds about right for the first bus stop crash, there was a second one, because after the first the shelter was replaced by the standard at the time blue metal one with small windows, and that was there right up until I went to secondary in 79, but at some point that too was destroyed but replaced with one of the modern style.

[47p2]

I've no recollection of Linn Motors having any part in the Eaglesham building. Linn was started by Alasdair Pearson in the late 60s, Alasdair lived in Giffnock and his showroom was where the Netherlee primary school now stands. The showroom moved from Netherlee to Merrylee Road in the mid 70s and over the years Linn had the largest Volvo dealership in Scotland with showrooms in Glasgow, Greenock, Paisley and Hamilton with almost 200 staff employed.

Linn also had a showroom at Seafield, Edinburgh but Volvo took that off them around 95-96 because Murray Volvo was the flagship in the area and Volvo said that one dealer in the area was enough.

In the 90s The Abercromby Group bought out Linn and it went downhill rapidly from then on. End of an era.

I have fond memories of passing the Netherlee showroom on a daily basis and lusting over the stunning Volvo 164s in the showroom, not such fond memories when they started selling Daf 33 and there were more of them in the forecourt than there was Volvo. Daf was a huge seller in the area, there was plenty the elderly women around the Netherlee, Stamperland and Clarkston area tootling down to the shops in their Daf cars...


The Waterfoot bus stop was always on my radar every time I passed it, the police used to stand/hide in the shelter with a radar gun checking for speeding cars. EDIT: The police hid behind the stone dyke at Floors Road with their hand held radar trap and if speeding you would get pulled in at the bus stop.

Very early Linn Motors (before Linn Volvo) sticker on the back of my Vauxhall Viva OHC



Headlamps, sidelights and indicators were from a 1965 Humber Super Snipe, grill from Viva and Ventora, 5½x12 with Michelin XAS tyres, Lucas SLR 700 spot lamps, Hella fog lamps.

Edited by 47p2 on Sunday 19th November 10:58

Edited by 47p2 on Sunday 19th November 11:02

Edited by 47p2 on Sunday 19th November 11:03

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

I've no recollection of Linn Motors having any part in the Eaglesham building. Linn was started by Alasdair Pearson in the late 60s, Alasdair lived in Giffnock and his showroom was where the Netherlee primary school now stands. The showroom moved from Netherlee to Merrylee Road in the mid 70s and over the years Linn had the largest Volvo dealership in Scotland with showrooms in Glasgow, Greenock, Paisley and Hamilton with almost 200 staff employed.

Linn also had a showroom at Seafield, Edinburgh but Volvo took that off them around 95-96 because Murray Volvo was the flagship in the area and Volvo said that one dealer in the area was enough.

In the 90s The Abercromby Group bought out Linn and it went downhill rapidly from then on. End of an era.

I have fond memories of passing the Netherlee showroom on a daily basis and lusting over the stunning Volvo 164s in the showroom, not such fond memories when they started selling Daf 33 and there were more of them in the forecourt than there was Volvo. Daf was a huge seller in the area, there was plenty the elderly women around the Netherlee, Stamperland and Clarkston area tootling down to the shops in their Daf cars...


The Waterfoot bus stop was always on my radar every time I passed it, the police used to stand/hide in the shelter with a radar gun checking for speeding cars. EDIT: The police hid behind the stone dyke at Floors Road with their hand held radar trap and if speeding you would get pulled in at the bus stop.

I’m trying to recall the timeline; did they at some point have the “new” showroom on Clarkston Rd, the one Haldanes occupied? For the life of me I can’t remember whether Haldanes were first to have it, as an Austin Rover franchise, from 1982-94/95 or if it was built earlier and Linn were the first occupants.

Like you I probably spent far too much of my youth in places such as Linn, I can remember the Dafs (‘forward to go forward, back to go back’ as it announced in the brochure, accompanied by a sketch of a dog driving one) in with the big cars, and indeed when they were rebranded as Volvos. An image flashed up in my mid of a couple of cars there, a silver 244 that was some sort of special edition ( a quick Google suggests the 1977 50th anniversary model) and a 164 in possibly a dark metallic green with tan leather, no idea why these, or indeed the brown Volvo 66 that sat in the showroom stuck in my memory.

Either way, I’m sure it was during that late 80s/early 90s period that Linn very briefly took over EG, my memory has it as being for only maybe 6 months to a year, right before the Merrylee Rd site was levelled for flats.

Across Cathcart Rd from the Haldanes showroom I have memories of a Seat dealer and that it was Westcars, having moved from the Tantallon Rd site when it was redeveloped into housing. However ŵhen I was doing a wee bit of research there I came across an article from 2000 that talked of Haldanes having been Seat dealers for 10 years and the petrol station there certainly did become a Seat dealer, the purpose built showroom being what is now the Co-Op.

I know Westcars had Seat at Tantallon Rd as I went with my mum to look at the then new Ibiza in 86, with a view to replacing her Metro with one. In the end she didn’t and bought another Metro, from Haldanes.

Did the Cathcart Rd site start as Westcars and then become Haldanes, and if so was it before or after the main Haldanes and Linn showrooms were demolished?

Getting back to Waterfoot, the police had a few favourite spots round there; coming from Eaglesham, they always hid a car at the lodge gates as they could pull offenders in at the adjacent the bus stop, then at Craighlaw Avenue, going towards Clarkston in conjunction with the radar trap at Floors, and finally just after Millerston, opp the entrance to the new Williamwood.

The trouble, for plod anyway, of that location was they would hide the traffic car up the lane, however as they came over the hill approaching drivers could easily make out the blue light sticking above the hedgerow, giving them ample time to adjust their speed.

Going back up towards Eaglesham, there were three locations, one at the bus shelter on the EPG side to catch those coming from Clarkston (I remember on black rat putting the gun on a 30s Austin 7 as it struggled up from the Waterfall and the pair of them near enough rolling around on the floor at the result), then one at Brackenrig to catch those coming over the hill, and finally a last one at the top of Barlae, with their car hidden along the wee road where Frank Reilly (trader and latterly seller of the CAP Guides outside Graham Square), lived.

[Master Of Puppets]

Peat road motors advert from the 80's with Ricki Fulton....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6twdNeMokGM

[ChonkyCat]

Master Of Puppets said:

Peat road motors advert from the 80's with Ricki Fulton

That was filmed at North St Motors, just round the corner from PRM’s New Sneddon St showroom (and whilst I remember, that’s another dealership that’s gone - Williams, who took over the site after the demise of PRM, iirc run by William Paton, son of John, he of the taxis, as they did a roaring trade for a while in taxi-spec Montegos, until the taxi boys realised just how awful the cars were) just prior to Dougie ( I forget his surname but I can remember he used to commute from Perth, every day) selling the business to Alec Crumlish - for a while my own business was located across the road from it.

[47p2]

Linn were in Merrylee Road in the mid 70s, 1976 or 77, my mate was still an apprentice at the time and I remember him moving to the new premises. I don't recall much about Haldane's car showrooms, I remember them as a haulage company and a coach tour company. My father knew John Haldane from the haulage days.

The silver Volvo 244 of 1977 was the Jubilee edition to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee being on the thrown for 25 years hence the silver paintwork

This one was sold a couple of years ago in the Glasgow area


The Bell Craig between Barlae Avenue and Alexander Avenue was where I first hit the magic 3 numbers on the speedometer in dad's Rover 3.5 Coupe, my mate's (Linn apprentice) father was driving down from Eaglesham and saw me belting up the road, he gave me a right earful when I next saw him


EDIT:
Paton's Taxis, give them a call at 8:00am and for £15 you could collect a 12 month MOT an hour later without the stress of taking your car into have it inspected. 70% of the guys where I worked had a Paton MOT

Edited by 47p2 on Sunday 19th November 18:38

[Master Of Puppets]

Did you go to the car auctions?, CCA when they were at Scotland St, and Intercity at Melbourne St, I think that was the only sunday auction in Scotland, now that place sold some seriously shady traffic.

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

Very early Linn Motors (before Linn Volvo) sticker on the back of my Vauxhall Viva OHC



Headlamps, sidelights and indicators were from a 1965 Humber Super Snipe, grill from Viva and Ventora, 5½x12 with Michelin XAS tyres, Lucas SLR 700 spot lamps, Hella fog lamps.

I can’t link to the pics due to the age of my account, however is that up the Bonnyton golf club road?

[47p2]

Master Of Puppets said:

Did you go to the car auctions?, CCA when they were at Scotland St, and Intercity at Melbourne St, I think that was the only sunday auction in Scotland, now that place sold some seriously shady traffic.

I went to a car auction place around St George's Cross, Maryhill Road, can't remember who ran it. Used to leave in the dark of night with eyes and throat stinging from the fumes. There were a few car auctions around the Barrowlands, most of the cars they sold were seriously shady. Then years later I went to Scottish Motor Auctions in Burnfield Road a few times.

[47p2]

ChonkyCat said:

I can’t link to the pics due to the age of my account, however is that up the Bonnyton golf club road?

Don't remember but more likely the Moor Road up towards Ballageich

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

Linn were in Merrylee Road in the mid 70s, 1976 or 77, my mate was still an apprentice at the time and I remember him moving to the new premises. I don't recall much about Haldane's car showrooms, I remember them as a haulage company and a coach tour company. My father knew John Haldane from the haulage days.

The silver Volvo 244 of 1977 was the Jubilee edition to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee being on the thrown for 25 years hence the silver paintwork

This one was sold a couple of years ago in the Glasgow area


The Bell Craig between Barlae Avenue and Alexander Avenue was where I first hit the magic 3 numbers on the speedometer in dad's Rover 3.5 Coupe, my mate's (Linn apprentice) father was driving down from Eaglesham and saw me belting up the road, he gave me a right earful when I next saw him


EDIT:
Paton's Taxis, give them a call at 8:00am and for £15 you could collect a 12 month MOT an hour later without the stress of taking your car into have it inspected. 70% of the guys where I worked had a Paton MOT

Edited by 47p2 on Sunday 19th November 18:38

John’s son, David was one of the three holidaymakers who drowned in an incident on Cyprus back in 1994, it wasn’t long after that they sold the coach business.

We all used to rag it down the Bell Craig, I stopped though after my dear friend Pamela was run over and killed on it in December 87…

[ChonkyCat]

Master Of Puppets said:

Did you go to the car auctions?, CCA when they were at Scotland St, and Intercity at Melbourne St, I think that was the only sunday auction in Scotland, now that place sold some seriously shady traffic.

I was a well-kent face at the auctions BCA/ADT/BCA, Graham Sq (Alec Beith/Tommy Graham/Intercity/CCA), then there was Central Motor Auctions (London Rd), Scottish Motor Auctions (Giffnock) and Manheim at Blochairn.

CCA are now owned by Arnie Sharks, although I think Jason has stayed on to run the show (I feel old remembering Jason’s first go up on the rostrum and us all giving him a round of applause after his first car).

Clarks effectively pulled the plug on Intercity after one of the traders, who shall remain nameless, was discovered to have been wholeshale robbing the AC cars of spare wheels, stereos etc, in cahoots with one of the staff. The trader was banned and the staff member sacked but it was too little too late, and without Clarks stuff to draw the punters and traders in, it folded. Phil’s boy, John is still in the auction game though, working for Wilsons down in Dalry.

Edited by ChonkyCat on Sunday 19th November 19:32

[47p2]

ChonkyCat said:

We all used to rag it down the Bell Craig...

Never saw the point of ragging it downhill, more fun trying to achieve the three numbers going uphill...

One good bit for ragging downhill if you had the bottle for it was from Crosslees Farm down over the Humble Bridge. Chap I went to school with (posh kid from Carolside) had daddies 3.0 litre Capri and when the car went over the bridge he was going so fast he was airborne into a field at Mid Borland Farm. He told his dad we all dared him and we all received a visit from said dad

[ChonkyCat]

47p2 said:

Never saw the point of ragging it downhill, more fun trying to achieve the three numbers going uphill...

One good bit for ragging downhill if you had the bottle for it was from Crosslees Farm down over the Humble Bridge. Chap I went to school with (posh kid from Carolside) had daddies 3.0 litre Capri and when the car went over the bridge he was going so fast he was airborne into a field at Mid Borland Farm. He told his dad we all dared him and we all received a visit from said dad

I know someone who took out the lamp post on the bend before the bridge, either sideways or upside down in his Escort one icy morning - I suspect he’s probably a member here 😉

[Bogsye]

Gosh, yes, the Scottish Motor Auctions on Burnfield Rd in Giffnock. Always an excellent selection of Austin Metros that’s were newish but slowly dissolving.

Does anyone have photos of Eaglesham Park Garage? I had a search but couldn’t find anything. It was quite a tidy looking period design as I recall.

Speed traps along the Glasgow Road. My rather noisy Austin Sprite was doubtless a major letdown for the boys in blue. Lots of noise but relatively tame speed..

[47p2]

It was always extremely difficult to get parked at SMA Giffnock, punters cars were parked everywhere and finding a space often meant a long walk.

I don't recall Park Garage as looking tidy, my memory was a rather tired old building need of repair, the yard littered with broken cars and the drop at the back of the garage down to the White Cart.

The bus stop at Barlae Avenue was another popular speed trap which made the Bell Craig challenge even more difficult as you couldn't be going any more than 30mph until you hit the national speed limit sign just past the bus stop