Karamu Holden franchise owner retires after 52 years in car industry

After being at the heart of Hastings' motoring industry for more than half a century, Karamu Holden managing director Kerry Stone is retiring.

For the past 52 years Mr Stone has sold "thousands" of cars from his Karamu Rd premises but speaking to Hawke's Bay Today he said it was time to put the hand-brake on.

Although he could not remember the first car he sold, he said he still remembers the first sale that "got away".

"That was a lesson I learned when I was a very young person. It was a Cadillac, and a guy came in one day and asked to drive it and I said he couldn't do that. He came back about two hours later driving a brand new Ford - It was a lesson well learned - you have to take everybody seriously."

Mr Stone said he still had several cars he had bought back from customers over the years.

"I've always been passionate about the Holden brand plus the HSV brand. I've got one of the Combo SSs. We sold it as a new car and bought it back a few years later and kept it.

"The other one we have still got today is a 1998 HSV Maloo. They only brought two into the country and we managed to sell one of them. The chap I sold it to couldn't afford to keep it, so three months later we bought it back and then resold it again.

"We traded it back off him in 2004 and we've had it ever since. It's absolutely pristine."

Mr Stone will retire at the end of the month, after selling the franchise to an Auckland couple.

However, he still looks back fondly over his time in the driving seat.

"I actually started in the motoring business when I was 18, when I started working with my father. He got quite ill quite young, so i took over the business from him when I was about 21. It was a used-car operation just down the road and we got our first franchise, which was Opal, in 1986.

"We had that for four years and then in 1990 the local Holden dealer went into receivership so that gave us the opportunity to pick this franchise up."

The operation then moved to its existing location and expanded to also include the Holden Special Vehicles franchise.

"It's a business that's grown over time but it hasn't always been that way. Like everything else there's been some tough years and some good years but overall, it's been very, very good."

Mr Stone said he had been lucky to have had a very loyal customer base that had kept things ticking over in the lean years.

"We've had very good support from our clients over the years, a very loyal client base. Some are still with us today that pretty much started out with us."