IN the space of about three weeks, Maitland and Port Stephens Toyota went from selling between 15 and 20 vehicles a day to maybe two.
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If that trend continues then in about four months, Burton Automotive, the family-owned business which has been around since 1963 and is a major employer and sponsor in the Hunter, will be forced to close its doors, leaving more than 100 staff out of a job.
While the coronavirus is affecting all businesses, car dealerships and car yards appear to be lost somewhere between small and big business, off the government's radar.
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They have not been deemed non-essential and, perhaps due to their high turnover and staff levels, are exempt from any economic support packages.
They remain open for business, cars positioned across the lot, staff waiting for a swarm of customers who will never arrive.
"At the moment I don't know how a car dealership is an essential service," Kim Burton, Maitland Toyota general manager, said.
"People are being told to stay home unless it is essential. "That doesn't include going out to a car yard, it really doesn't. "People at the moment are certainly not buying motor cars."
Mr Burton, the son of the company's founders, Norman and Maureen Burton, said a combination of self-isolation guidelines, job losses and people generally avoiding spending as well as the federal government's decision to ban all motor auctions, which impacted greatly on the number of car sales through dealerships, had led to a "massive downturn", unprecedented even compared to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the 2011 Japanese tsunami which wiped out suppliers and saw Toyota's quarterly profit crumble more than 75 per cent.
He described an agonizing, sleepless past few weeks, a feeling no doubt familiar to the Hunter's many car dealership owners, and said he would often wake in the early hours of the morning, his mind racing with problems and potential solutions.
"We've always been a company that has been involved in sponsorship and supporting the community," Mr Burton said. "This is just totally going to affect absolutely everything that we do and what we've stood for for a lot of years. "We're kind of having to survive this on our own the best way we can. At some stage it will be a financial decision; whether we shut the doors or remain open. But at the moment I don't want to close our family business. It has never been closed in 57 years. Quite frankly, I am reasonably anxious and worried about what is going to happen and how long this is going to go for because if something doesn't happen in the next few months one way or another I just can't fathom that we could literally lose our family business through no fault of our own."
I just can't fathom that we could literally lose our family business through no fault of our own.
- Maitland Toyota general manager Kim Burton said.
The operation that would eventually become Maitland and Port Stephens Toyota began in 1963 when Norman and Maureen Burton purchased a Golden Fleece Petrol Station, small car yard and service workshop at East Maitland.
The business has since expanded into two large dealerships as well as Hunter Haval and Hunter 4x4 accessories, won countless national awards and has been a major sponsor of Surfest for more than a decade.
The business also sponsors dozens of other Hunter events and sporting clubs, but there are fears that level of community support will be impossible to maintain in a few months.
"It's been a long time and we had it tough in the early stages of our business," Mr Burton said. "Toyota has only been on a role for the last 17 years and there is decades of hard work that my mum and dad had to go through to get our business to where it is today. Normally you can watch a business go broke over 6 to 8 or 12 months. This has been three weeks. Who would have ever thought that you would find yourself in this position?"
To combat the sudden and dramatic decrease in sales, the family-owned dealership has encouraged much of its more than 100 staff members to take leave or job share and the two dealerships have, like many other car dealers across Newcastle, agreed to cease trading on Sundays.
Mr Burton said the company would need to continue to "tread carefully" over the next 90 days if they wanted to remain in business on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But he hoped before that the government would step in, shut them down and provide some economic support to help their many staff.
"If not, we'll just have to do what we can to hang on," Mr Burton said. "I just pray that we can get through to the other side."
The Australian Automotive Dealer Association, the industry body representing car dealers, said new car sale figures for March were the worst monthly result in more than a decade and served as an indicator of the hardship dealers would face in the next few months.
"New car dealers across Australia have mostly managed to keep their doors open and service the needs of their customers, but the impact of the coronavirus will push some dealers over the edge," AADA CEO James Voortman said. "Unfortunately, dealers don't qualify for many of the stimulus packages because of their high turnover and staff levels. Governments need to understand that new car dealers operate on very low margins and turnover alone is not a metric that can be used to determine their survivability in such adverse trading conditions. What we are saying to governments is please talk to us when designing and delivering these packages.
"Dealers are big employers, pay large amounts of taxes and duties and operate as generous and upstanding corporate citizens in the communities they serve. "Dealers have never asked for a handout before, but need all the help they can get now if they are to survive."