DRIVE west on the Karoonda Highway into Murray Bridge in South Australia and you come to a brand new showroom for the long-standing Duttons family which houses Mitsubishi, Hyundai and RAM. 

Nearby are Nissan, Mazda and Ford showrooms and further west down the road at Mount Barker are the third generation auto family’s Adelaide Hills dealerships of Subaru, Volkswagen Isuzu Ute and GWM; with LDV to be added soon.

Started in 1949 as a foundation Holden dealer, Duttons is celebrating 75 years in the industry and plans are being mooted to install a fourth generation into the family business. 

Business owner Jack Dowling and his wife Julia (Dutton) bought the business in 2001 when it had Holden, Nissan and Mazda. They gradually added brands over time. Ford came in when Holden closed.

The new dealership was a complete rebuild on what started out as a tiring Chrysler dealership which Chrysler owned initially under its assisted dealer buyout program for budding retailers.

Julia and Jack Dowling

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Holden, Ford and Chrysler bought land and built new dealerships. The factories then installed promising dealers with their houses on the line in a buyout program. Some of Australia’s best-known and successful dealers got their start this way.

Mr Dowling told GoAutoNews Premium that the old dealership was built in the 1950s and had holes in the roof with buckets collecting water on rainy days.

“The staff certainly deserved the new facility they have now,” he said.

Under the rebuilding plan the company bought extra land beside the old building and decided to put in an extra showroom for RAM. They doubled the size of the workshop to 13 bays.

The Mitsubishi, Hyundai and RAM business in the new building is run by about 30 people with a total of 120 at both the Murray Bridge and Mount Barker stores.

Mr Dowling said that Mount Barker was growing to the point that it is “almost a suburb of Adelaide” and that Murray Bridge people tended to shop locally. He said that the town was awaiting the rebuilding of a large abattoir that caught fire some years ago with the loss of a key employer. 

Footnote:  The Duttons family in South Australia are not related to the family that owns the Dutton Garage in Victoria.