IT is unlikely any Greenock garage has ever matched the services offered by McIntyre’s.
Aside from having a Vauxhall franchise, into the 1960s the business operated as a coachbuilder and haulage contractor.
It became a limited company in 1912 but Donald McIntyre starting making bodies for horse-drawn carriages and carts, which carried raw sugar from the docks to the refineries, in the previous century.
Prior to the garage side of business moving to new premises in 1964, the company’s showroom was in Duncan Street, also the location of the coachbuilding and haulage operations. The vehicle service department was in Wellington Street.
I have yet to discover when Donald McIntyre died but the business was owned by Tate & Lyle for many years and held Vauxhall car and Bedford van and truck franchises. Sometime after 1979 the Vauxhall dealership passed to owners outwith the area.
The McIntyre name was dropped but the Vauxhall franchise retained when Arnold Clark bought the business in 1995.
Arnold Clark closed the Vauxhall dealership in 2020. The company still have a branch on the Pottery Street site which previously housed McIntyre’s service department.
It is certain quite a number of readers will recall Fred Finnie who was McIntyre’s sales chief for many years.
The accompanying images show McIntyre’s Port Glasgow Road showrooms and petrol station when officially opened in April, 1964, the Pottery Street service department which was later housed in the Port Glasgow Road premises, Vauxhall Victor VX 4/90 saloons for a sponsorship programme linked with the 1974 World Cup, and the Duncan Street coachbuilding operation in 1963.
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