Lewis Opel shuts its doors
LEWIS Opel in Portlaoise is the latest high profile car dealership in Laois to fall victim to the economic recession with its doors closing for the last time recently.
The showroom on the Mountrath Road is now completely vacant and all cars have been removed from the premises. Signs in the windows and on doors in the premises state that it is "closed for business" with a number of recent trade-in offers still on display on some of the windows.
The garage and parts area of the building also stands idle along with the vacant salesroom which is now virtually empty apart from a kiddies table and chairs which once kept children of customers occupied while cars were sold on the premises.
Lewis Opel was one of the most established car sale operations in Portlaoise, having been in business for over 30 years. It is the second Opel garage to close in Laois/Offaly in recent years, with Church Road Motors in Tullamore, which had Opel and Peugeot dealerships, closing in the last year or so.
It also follows a number of other well-known car dealers which have gone to the wall in the county in the past 12 months.
Owen Reddy Motor Company of Mountrath ceased trading last August. The company catered to the high end of the motor trade, offering "modern executive cars." Cars on offer shortly before the closure included Ferrari, Lotus, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz.
The previous May, Lismard Autoworld closed with the loss of 20 jobs.
Towards the end of last year, it was reported that new car sales had fallen by 64 per cent and sales figures for 2009 were the industry's worst annual sales figure since 1988.
The news of the closure of Lewis Opel came as a surprise in light of recent figures which showed that car sales so far this year have already exceeded the total for the whole of last year.
Released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), the new figures show there have been 57,898 new cars sold this year, 438 more than the total amount sold last year. This time last year, there were 40,933 new cars sold, meaning this year's figure is a 41 per cent increase on 2009.
This upturn was attributed to the national scrappage scheme which helped the beleaguered car industry rally somewhat after a disastrous 2009.
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Friday 18 May 2012
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