31 July 2023
Update #2:
Effective from 1st August 2023
Parts Sales
Abingdon Motors has ceased counter sales and move to online parts sales only. The shop will be open Tuesdays and Thursdays From 10:00am - 2:00pm for Order Collection and Counter Sales (by appointment)
Workshop Services
The Abingdon Workshop will not be accepting new service or repair bookings. The Workshop will now operate under the new management of Timeless Automotive, and they will be offering workshop services for classic and modern vehicles.
Bookings can be made by phoning Timeless Automotive on 0411 350 818
We thank you again for your continued support
10 July 2023
Update #1:
We’d like to thank everyone who reached out to us after the announcement in May, that we will be moving Abingdon to online sales only. It was great to hear from our current and past customers, and even a few of the other MG shops around Australia, all sending their best wishes. It’s nice to know the MG Spirit is still alive and well, within the MG community.
Due to the number of cars we have had book in for work, since the announcement, we have had to extend our workshop trading into July, and in turn our counter sales are continuing while the workshop is open.
We are happy to also announce that we have completed our MGA online catalogue, which is now live on our website. It is able to be accessed via the spare parts links, and banners on our main page (linked below).
We have a wide range of used parts available for T types through to MGF/TF, that will start to be listed online in the coming months. However, this will take some time due to the large stock we have on hand, so if you are looking for any used (or new) parts, please contact us while we are still in store, and we will be happy to assist.
Thank you for your continued support
2 May 2023
Important Announcement:
We have made the difficult decision to make some major commercial changes to the future structure of Abingdon Motors, which will come into effect in the coming months.
As many of you are aware, we bought Abingdon Motors in 2017 when it was under threat of closure, with the sole intention of keeping an Australian owned, and long standing MG business up and running.
We understood from the onset that it would not be an easy undertaking, however the challenges of the past 3 years have made this endeavour increasingly difficult.
The retirement of David Wands, and the loss of his years of experience in late 2019, held its own challenges, and the advent of COVID only a few months later, made it all the more difficult.
Now the Cross-river tunnel construction is surrounding the area, and with the associated road works and the closure of the Dutton Park Train station, this has resulted in minimal parking in the area, and virtually little to no access to our shop.
In addition to all of this, we like all automotive businesses, were affected by the worldwide parts supply shortages, and this dramatically effected our stock levels and ability to supply parts to our customers. This coupled with the increasing trend of clients buying from overseas based online suppliers, rather than supporting Australian businesses, has made it unviable to keep large stock levels, while still paying the overheads of an over the counter store.
This inability to maintain stock has been frustrating for us and our customers, some of whom have expressed their frustration in increasingly aggressive and abusive behaviour, both verbally and physically, towards our staff.
This behaviour has had a significant impact on the morale of our staff, affecting their ability to provide the level of personable customer service, both we and our customers have come to expect.
As we wish to keep Abingdon open and operational in some capacity, we have made the decision to close the workshop and counter sales at the end of June, or early July 2023, and operate exclusively as an online sales business. To that end, over the course of the next few weeks we will be working on completing the online catalogues, and updating the website where needed.
We will still be using the Dutton Park site for warehousing of parts, and we will be available one or two days a week for local orders to be picked up. However this will be by appointment only.
The current workshop is being taken over by an independent mechanical shop, which will offer services to modern cars. They have agreed to, and are capable of continuing work on MG’s and other classic cars, however this will be at their discretion, and will be totally independent of Abingdon Motors.
As MG enthusiasts and collectors for over 35 years, and proud supporters of Australian business, we deeply regret having to make this decision, however we believe this is the only option other than shutting down completely.
We would like to thank all of our Customers and Friends that have supported Abingdon Motors, both in our tenure as owners and throughout its long history. We hope that our move to online sales will be successful enough, to make it viable to reopen the physical shop, and possibly the workshop again, in the future.
- Matt & Colleen