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Attwood Motors - General Motors Holden (Stirling Street, Perth)
1914
April 30: Silbert and Sharp Pty Ltd list their address as 22 Stirling Street, Perth.
1918
Holden’s Motor Body Builders is established.
1926
General Motors Australia is established.
1930
Chrysler House on Stirling Street became the showroom, assembly and service department for Attwood Motors, which opened in 1930. It was built on land that was previously the Stirling Street Markets. Sometime in the late 1930s, the part of Chrysler House that was home to the Attwood Motors car dealership, was renamed Attwood House (Museum of Perth, Facebook Post, 13 May 2022).
1931
General Motor’s Holden Limited is established, which resulted from a merge between General Motors Australia and Holden Motor Body Builders. (They would later become Holden Limited in the late 1990s).
1934
Mr WA Young purchases Attwood Motors.
1935
November 19: Attwood Motors Ltd opens a new commercial branch at 40 Milligan Street, Perth under Manager HC Hebditch. Whilst their Stirling Street premises have an acre of space, it‘s become too small for their business operations. When Managing Director William Attwood began his company, he was the Manager, Salesman and Office Assistant. Mr WA Young is the General Manager (The Daily News, p2).
Stirling Street Frontage
1938
May 22: When cars were delivered for customers who’d pre-purchased them, Attwood Motors (and presumably other companies and services) advertised in the newspaper. The ad would state the customer’s name, street, suburb and the type of car they’d purchased.
1949
December 3: Four men pleaded guilty in the Perth Police Court on charges of stealing and receiving various parts from Attwood Motors, where they were employed. Between June and December this year, they used the stolen parts on their own vehicles, in lieu of selling them as they were employed to do so. Three of the men were fined £15 and the fourth man was put on a bond.
1951
August 24: (Alphine) Parlour Cars were a high frequency transport car service that drove the route from Perth to Fremantle between 1938 and 1951 and were operated by Beam Transport. All eight of them were taken off the road to be replaced with “five Bedford OB buses and two Dennis Lancet IV J7’s”. Attwood Motors was asked to evaluate the cars for disposal.
Stirling Street Level
1955
John Hughes takes up a panel beater clerk position with Attwood Motors.
1956
John Hughes is made a sales cadet at Attwood Motors.
1958
John Hughes becomes the General Manager of Attwood Motors used vehicle operations at Attwood’s of Fremantle before moving to run Attwood’s Motorama. Later in 1969, he would finally make his mark in the car sales industry by branching out with his own business called Paramotors.
