Take it Easy, Witchy Woman, Lyin’ Eyes, Already Gone, and my favourite, Desperado. I must have played that Eagles tape more than anyone on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, and that music just came flooding back to me this week on my visit to a car showroom with a difference.
Now add in the smell of EP90 gear-oil, leatherette, antifreeze, t-cut and petrol all transported me back to the 70s and 80s.
“Hi Sir, Get Away from That Car”.
It only seems like yesterday since I saw these cars brand new before anyone else in Letterkenny!
When my next door neighbour, Jim Tease was not driving the fire engine for the Letterkenny Fire Brigade. he worked in Mc Mahon Bros in Letterkenny.
FIH 561, One of the First Massey Ferguson Tractors to be sold in Mc Mahon’s Brothers Milford. sitting on is a very young Derek Mc Mahon and his father Arthur .
One of the jobs was to drive brand new cars down from Dublin for customers. Back in the day the latest in Hillmans, Chryslers, BMWs, Vauxhalls and Peugeot all landed down from Dublin where we would get a motoring preview of the latest in motoring.
“Hi Sir, Get Away from That Car” Jim would call to us worried we would scrape them, but it did little to deter us from gazing into these brand new cars, no one had a brand new car in them days, but at least twice a week Jim would have one sitting outside his house overnight, with that tell-tale garage plates tied to the front and back bumper.
In those days Jim would have driven the new cars around the south to avoid Northern Ireland during the worst of the troubles.
New kid in town
Winding the clock forward and Mc Mahon Bros garage is just a memory in Letterkenny but in Milford where the family started their motoring business the name Mc Mahon is making a comeback in the motor car trade.
Where once the rattle of industrial sewing machine could be heard from The Fruit of the Loom Factory now you’re more likely to hear the rattle of an Austin of England or a Beamer of Bavaria!
Rodger McMahon, a son of the late Derek Mc Mahon and grandson of the original Mc Mahon Brothers that started in business as millers in their home town before turning to the motor trade. That name is back in the motoring business in Milford.
Derek Mc Mahon with a very young Enda Kenny with Irish F1 team owner Eddie Jordan with a inscription included
“Big D, you made me” signed Eddie Jordan
Rodger is located in the old Fruit of the Loom factory next door to Loreto Community School. The massive reception area is now a car showroom.
Everything is at a very early stage, boxes upon boxes of motoring photographic history especially motor-sporting history which include Rodger’s father Derek and his Derek McMahon racing team are everywhere just ready to go in the wall.
Rodger and his wife Bridgeen with his late father and mother Derek and Anne representing Donegal Oil Co. who were guest at the opening of Kelly’s Toyota New Showrooms in 2006 Photo Brian McDaid
Rodger has already built up a fine collection of fine classic cars, anything from a black Mini or Morris Minor or even a bright bright red Austin 1100 right through to a White Rolls Royce. Or a lovely old Rover P5B sitting up in the corner.
Rodger owns most of the classic cars but he also welcomes others to leave in their cars and offer them for sale.
Sitting half way up the show room floor is one such car, an immaculate series 7 Avenger estate with only 26,000 miles on the clock. It belongs to Letterkenny’s Andrew Harvey. Sticking my head in the door of this fine car the old car smell takes me back 35 years to the first car I owned myself, a red car version of the same, it looks very standard now but in those days it was the business.
Granted my Avenger was around the clock once, would jumped out of second gear every so often but with that Eagles tape in the a Pioneer Stereo, it was the case of “take it to the limit one more time”, for me every time i got behind the wheel.
A load of new cars on a transporter from Mc Mahons Bros on a TK Bedford making this way down the street at the Letterkenny Folk Festival.
Rodger had been flat out since he opened, he has loads of enquiries on line, and is well equipped to deliver any cars sold anywhere in Ireland or England.
One of the rarest cars that Rodger has on his books is a Bond equipe. It’s a fibreglass bodied two plus two similar to the triumph herald. The car sits at the doorway of Rodger’s showrooms in Milford.
One of the photos that Rodger has ready to go up on the wall is that of two local heroes in motorsport from Donegal, they are pictured at their Mini Cooper as they get ready to start on the Circuit of Ireland Rally.
Robert Ward was the driver, also in the motor trade based in Kerrykeel along side his was Milford’s Phonsie McElwee both men along with Rodger’s father Derek and indeed Andrew Harvey’s late father Eamon were founding members of the Donegal Motor Club back in the the early 70s.
The summer of ’72.. Robert Ward from Kerrykeel and Phone McElwee with their Mini Cooper before the Circuit of Galway Rally in 1972 , just one of the photos from Rodgers history of Motorsport which he hope to show at his classic showroom in Milford.
Motorsport Museum
With all the memorabilia from Donegal’s great days of motorsport available, wouldn’t it be just great to put all this stuff together in a location like this?
The Bond Car pictured on show at Rodger Mc Mahon’s showrooms in Milford. Photo Brian McDaid
It’s just a perfect time warp to go down to visit and is opened Saturdays and Rodger is also about “off and on” every Sunday which has to be good news for classic car men for a nice dry location to view classic and vintage cars of years gone by.
Happy motoring folks
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