Jack Glover, who owned and ran Ilkeston-based Granby Motors, one of the biggest independent motorcycle dealerships in the UK until it closed at the end of 2015, has died.
Granby Motors retailed Suzuki small bikes, Rieju, Garelli, Lifan, Zontes, AJS, Baotian and Siamoto. It was also exclusive European distributor for Siamoto spare parts.
At the time of the closure, the family said it was owing to illness and challenging trading conditions.
Granby Motors was formed in 1962 and Jack soon spotted an opportunity to sell the emergent Japanese motorcycles whose reliability was winning over even the most loyal British motorcyclists.
Instead of working with the manufacturers, which were looking for dealers to import and retail their machines, he and a few other entrepreneurs worked out how to purchase the bikes abroad and privately import and sell them, undercutting the main dealers. Realising that the sum of the parts was greater than the whole machines, he also parted the motorcycles and made healthy profits.
Soon, the rest of the world caught on to so-called grey imports and the internet brought a rush of cheaper parts from those trading with lower overheads, making it harder for Granby to make money. The decline of Granby Motors was not helped by the arrival of cheap Chinese bikes.
More details to follow.
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