Britain’s oldest car franchise has sold its final dealership and no longer has its name on the side of its forecourt.
Skurrays Oxford is now part of the Eden Motor Group after being sold for an undisclosed fee and has now been rebranded under the Eden badge. The Skurrays business originally opened in 1899 and had sold Vauxhall cars for more than a century.
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Skurrays was started in Swindon by Ernest Clement Skurray, who continued working for the business until he died in 1940. The garage is believed have been the UK’s first car dealership and the family owned the business until 1960.
Nick Plevey and Nigel Harvey bought the group in 2009. Late last year, branches in Swindon and Marlborough were sold and the Oxford garage was the final one to still carry the Skurrays name.
Mr Plevey told AM-Online: “The simple truth of it is that I’m 60 now and I’m going to start my retirement. I started work serving petrol at 14 and it’s been none stop ever since. I’m ready for a break.
“Throughout my time here we’ve enjoyed excellent backing from Vauxhall Motor Holdings and it’s a relationship that the brand has maintained with the Skurrays name for over a hundred years. The biggest loss in all this is the loss of the Skurrays name.”
Eden MD Graeme Potts said the group was aware of the importance of the Skurrays name and said it was
“always sad to see an established name leave the landscape”.
He added: “But we have our own successful brand and it has been our policy to re-brand all our sites with the Eden name.”
