Proprietor – Allen Powell

It was way back in 1973 when Allen Powell took over the realms at Shurlock Row Garage, having previously been a mechanical motor engineer.

At the time of takeover, Shurlock Row Garage was an Austin dealership but the manufacturer was undergoing radical changes with their dealers and decided to take away the franchise from the smaller outlets, so this is when Allen embarked on what was to be the best 29 years of his career by taking on the Skoda franchise.

During this period, Allen saw huge changes in the manufacturers products and today they are a far cry from the old times. Allen enjoyed a fantastic relationship with Skoda and built up a huge reputation in the area, so much so, Allen still gets asked by previous customers to get a nearly new Skoda for them.

In 1996 Allen commissioned to have a brand new purpose built showroom to accomodate the new range of cars as Shurlock Row was a strong leader in the area for new and used car sales. However, it was in 2003 that Skoda announced that they wanted a bigger prescence in the area and needed a larger dealership to assist them. There was no more space available at Shurlock Row and it was with deep regret that Allen had to finally give up the Skoda franchise after a very rewarding 29 year relationship with them.

So, in 2003 Allen searched to find a replacement franchise and in 2004 became an official Kia franchised dealership selling their new car range from the showroom in Broadmoor Road. However, this relationship wasn’t to be like the previous franchise of Skoda and Allen decided to relinquish the franchise in 2005 in favour of becoming a Daihatsu franchised dealer. Successful sales continued up until March 2008 when Allen decided that it was time to slow down in life and not be a franchised dealer anymore and took the decision to sell just used cars from the garage.

With Steve Smith be appointed as Sales Manager at the garage, Allen went down to the service department at Shurlock Row village and assist in the day to day running with Service Manager Bob Hill.

Taking the odd day off to enjoy a nice game of golf, Allen will be looking forward to taking  a further step back and let everyone else run the garage and hopefully play some extra games too!