THE PALLANT FAMILY’S AUTOMOTIVE LEGACY

BY LUCY BREWER

Kincraig Motors has been a long and highly successful family affair in the South East of South Australia.

Reg Pallant, currently at the helm, inherited the business from his father Bert, who was well known as ‘The Chief.’

Bert became a mechanic in the early 1920s when the reliability of vehicles was “questionable”. In 1924 he joined what was then the Kincraig Motor Garage, working for joint owners Frank Holmes and Malcom Beaton. In 1932, the Pallant family purchased the business, beginning what is now an automotive legacy.

Much like his father, Reg started at Kincraig Motors as an apprentice motor mechanic at the tender age of 15.

He became general manager in 1971 and took ownership of the company in 1974.

In the days when Bert led the company it was an agent for Ford and then Holden when the brand was first introduced in Australia in the late 1940s. At this point Kincraig became one of two Holden dealers in Naracoorte.

Reg said Naracoorte, a rural town of approximately 4,000 people, was too small for two Holden dealers. So the company had to get creative with its services.

“We sold and rented farm equipment and motorcycles,” he said.

It was only after the other Holden dealer closed its doors that Kincraig Motors refocused on cars, specifically selling and renting Holden vehicles.

Fast forward to 2017 and many people were saddened when it was announced Holden cars would no longer be manufactured in Australia. On 17 February 2021, General Motors confirmed the retirement of the Holden brand after 72 years.

“I’ve always been in cars, of course,” said Reg.“It came as a shock.

“To be quite candid, as Holden dealers we were losing thousands of dollars every time we sold a car, and that made it very difficult to stay in business.”

L to R - Kevin Roberts, Ken Lange, Kym Aylesbury, Tim Bainger, John Ferguson, Lindsay Neale, Ralf Koenig, Henry Kaczmarek, Stephen Johnson, Phil Knight, Bert Pallant, Reg Pallant, Donald Ferguson, Betty Adams, Terry Adams, Rick Wilson, Graham Shipham.

Reg said he wasn’t prepared to walk away, and accessed his superannuation to keep the company afloat.

This can-do attitude boded well for the predicament that would befall many businesses when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Whilst Reg noted that COVID-19 did not reach Naracoorte, the closure of the nearby Victorian border meant Kincraig Motors’ Victorian customer base could no longer access the company’s services. This resulted in a loss of business of almost 40%.

Reg and his son Bruce, who also joined Kincraig Motors at a young age, continued to persevere against the odds, with the reopening of the border bringing some respite.

Car servicing is now just one of the many services Kincraig

Motors offers. The company has the RAA contract for Naracoorte, shifts shipping containers and has moved into the trucking space, which is a focus for Bruce.

“We disposed of our used cars and put shipping containers where the cars were,” said Reg.

“We sell shipping containers to customers all over the South East and western Victoria.”

As for the Motor Trade Association? Reg calls it, “a leading light in knowledge”.

“When I need to know something, I look to the MTA as being the provider of that knowledge,” he said.

“You need some sort of organisation above you, and the MTA has been very supportive.”

As of 2021, Kincraig Motors will have been around for over a century and it doesn’t sound like the Pallant family will bequeath the custodianship anytime soon.