Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 43 - October/November 2008
Maughan Thiem makes history
The Maughan Thiem Motor Company was established soon after the turn of the last century as a partnership between Hubert Behrens and Eric Marshall, trading under the name Behrens & Marshall. Alfred Ross Thiem and Frederick Milton Maughan joined the partnership in 1913 and the business continued to operate as a partnership until December 1920 when it was formally registered as the Maughan Thiem Motor Company. The Maughan Thiem Group celebrated its 95th birthday in 2007 and after more than 90 years of trading, Maughan Thiem is the oldest Ford dealer trading in Adelaide. Dealer Principal Peter Thomas and Finance Director Murray Forbes oversee the operation. Both Peter and Murray have worked in the business for more than 30 years and have a direct link with the company’s first owners.
“We have been market leader in recent years in the Ford FPV (performance vehicles) market,” Murray says.
“We recently upgraded our Ford showroom at Port Adelaide to become a state-of-the art facility for presenting the Ford range of products.”
In 1972 all operations were consolidated into the large site at 1013 Port Road, Cheltenham but since the turn of the century Maughan Thiem has been branching out again as sales grow, starting with the City Mazda acquisition in 2000. In October 2002 Hyundai joined the franchises under the Maughan Thiem banner.
“We were appointed as the Hyundai dealer in Mount Barker in August 2008, adding to our existing Hyundai operation at Port Adelaide,” Murray says.
“We’ve participated in a period of record new car sales for Mazda through our City Mazda operation.”
Such a long history of customer focus has built an extensive and loyal customer base.
“We take the approach that we are here for the long term, so we work very hard on communicating with those clients as often as we can,” Murray says.
“We have staff whose sole job is to keep clients informed about things such as when the next ...
