Kustoms of Australia

Kustoms of Australia

- Peter Carpenter

DEMISE OF AN ICON

Back when many of us were newly licensed and buying up all the cheap old Fords to build hot rods, one of the best places in Melbourne to obtain the older parts we needed was Melford Motors. It was the biggest Ford dealership in the state, if not all of Australia, and had a huge inventory of both new and new old stock Ford parts. The staff were also among the most knowledgeable and were always happy to provide technical and other assistance to help us keep our old cars on the road.

During the late 1920s Ford vehicles were transitioning from being imported from dealers and distributors in the USA and Canada to locally assembled by Ford Australia. If sales volumes were to continue growing the Ford Motor Company realised they needed to build a network of independent dealers to sell and service Ford vehicles around the country.

The Ford agency for The City of Melbourne was awarded to local entrepreneur Leonard Fenton, who had been in the automobile sales business since the early 1920s. Fenton was granted distribution rights for Ford vehicles in 1928 and used an abbreviation of the word Melbourne combined with Ford to identify his dealership as the Ford agent for Melbourne City. His allocated sales area covered a radius of 20 miles from the GPO in Elizabeth Street.