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Attwood / General Motors Holden
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.
Pier Street Level
1971
Mr Young restructures the commercial side of the company as Major Motors and opens car yards in Belmont and Fremantle, specialising in Holden commercial vehicles and Bedford trucks.
1971
WA Young secures a franchise to sell Isuzu as part of his General Motors range.
1975 (TBC)
A fire consumes Attwood Motors. During the rebuild, sections of Attwood Motors like the Spare Parts department are able to continue working during the rebuild. Mr Young and his son Peter had their offices above the showroom. Mr Young’s daughter in law was Miss Australia, Tanya Verstak.
1979
General Motors moves to Phoenix Holden in Wangara.
The site was later taken over by the Rhema Bible Training Centre, which would later become Riverview Church.
Stirling Street - Rear
1980’s
Mr Young stops selling Bedford trucks, which are being phased out. He also relinquished the franchise to sell the Holden brands to solely focus on Isuzu.
1991
March 26: A notice is published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (Business) for the voluntary liquidation of Major Holdings Pty Ltd. The wholly subsidised companies under Major Holdings are also listed as being in liquidation:
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Youngs WA Wholesale Pty Ltd
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YM Wholesale Pty Ltd
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Solon Pty Ltd
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Rojam Motors Pty Ltd
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Stirling Investments Pty Ltd
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Omik Pty Ltd
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Atwood Motors Wholesale Pty Ltd
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Narmot Pty Ltd
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MM Wholesale 1977 Pty Ltd
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Major Leasing Pty Ltd
Stirling Street - Side
1992
June 11: The old General Motors warehouse sells for $590,000.
1995
May 17: The old General Motors warehouse sells for $590,000.
2009
November 16: Former Air Force Sergeant Jack Wong Sue passes away in Kalamunda. He’d been employed as an office boy at Attword Motors in 1941 but was more famous for his part in the Z Special Unit, which saw him receive a Distinguished Conduct Medal. He opened a dive shop in 1946, which grew into a major enterprise when he started Jack Sue Skindivers, becoming a major figure in the world of scuba diving for decades. The extent of his accomplishments is beyond the scope of this Attwood Motors timeline but on a last note, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2006.
2017
January 20: February 26: Colin Barnett gives the green light for a proposed $1.85 billion Perth World Trade Centre to be constructed on Stirling Street. Chairman of the World Trade Centre Association, Jordanian billionaire Ghazi Abu Nahl is reported to have purchased a number of properties for this project to go ahead. It appears the grand project will consume a number of sites including the old Megamart and General Motor’s Stirling Street car yard, the latter in which is currently leased to Wilson Parking.
2018
February 26: The State Government puts the World Trade Centre development on hold, citing some of the land required to build the towers is crucial to future rail line infrastructure.
