austin supplier in wales

[Tony Betts]

Austin supplier in wales.

   

[Howard Wright]

Hi Tony

Fantastic find.

I was led to believe that Tom Norton at the Automobile Palace in Llandrindod was the main (only?) Austin agent in Wales.  Evidently this badge shows otherwise.

Cheers

Howard

[Mike Costigan]

Possibly not, Howard. I'm not sure of the hierarchy of the Austin dealer network, but it's possible that Tom Norton was the Main Agent for Wales, with local 'dealers' like Evans being supplied by him. For example, my car was supplied by J Richards of Hucknall Road, Nottingham, but it carries the original number plates with details of the local Main Agent, Newsome's Garage, also of Nottingham.


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[Chris Garner]

As Mike says, many garages were what might be described as " sub agents ". My wife worked for Morkell and Carnell in Nottingham, agents for Austin and Alvis, but the main agent in the city was Atkey's. Shipside's were the main Morris agent but with many " subs " about the city. My first MGB in 1967 was supplied in this way.

[Colin Morgan]

And should you break down (which you wouldn't, of course) - do you think this could manage a Seven?

   

[Tony Betts]

Hi mike,

Nice to see a suppliers plate stay with a car.

Suppliers plates have always interested me.

Usually they do exactly what they say on the tin. SUPPLIED by.

Unusually the event is sales and service, which would suggest to me they are more high street. Catching all the trade they can get.

Below is a suppliers plate for tom Norton, unusually they are a distributor.

Would this suggest they had a contract to be the only dirrect buyer of austin cars, in that area. Then sold them to smaller distributors like Evan's?

Tony.

   

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Ps: love the truck.

[Simon]

The Evans Motors family in Carmarthen owned and trailed a Grasshopper in the 1950s, I seem to remember they may have owned 2?

[Mike Costigan]

Tony, that's my understanding of how it worked. The customer would order his new car from his local garage, who would then order it from the area distributor (Tom Norton in this case). I believe that the distributor would typically keep some cars in stock for immediate delivery; if they were not to the ordered colour/spec, then they in turn would order it from the Longbridge factory. The factory, in turn, kept popular colours in stock, whilst less-popular or non-standard colours might take some time before they were available.

Where a suitable service was available, cars would be shipped to the distributor by rail, but then in all probability the car would then be delivered by road to the local dealer - in these cases, as with my car, the distributor would register the car and fit the number plates, leaving the dealer to fix his own supplier's plate.

[RupertW]

On the subject of supplier plates, I've always rather liked this one in my very tatty 1934 Box Saloon. I've never been able to find any infomation on Arnold's garage via googling so I'd be interested if anyone else knows of it. 

   

[Colin Morgan]

This is on the Dorset A7 site:

http://www.da7c.co.uk/History%20Section/...%2718).pdf