Hallway

The hallway runs the length of the workshop building at 17 Smith Street, Chatswood East, the mechanical and service arm of what was once one of Sydney's North Shore's larger Holden dealer networks. Sunlight filters through windows layered with grime, picking out strips of paint that have lifted from the walls and a floor scattered with the kind of debris that accumulates when a working building is simply walked away from. Nothing has been cleared. Nothing has been staged. The building is exactly as it was left. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd was registered with ASIC on 5 January 1967 under ACN 000 560 770, operating as an authorised Holden dealership with dealer code 610 assigned to Chatswood, NSW. The company ran a multi-branch network across Sydney's northern suburbs, with confirmed entities at Chatswood and Pittwater, and operated the Smith Street address as its primary workshop and service centre, separate from the showroom operation that had previously occupied a Pacific Highway site until 1987. The workshop handled the aftersales work: the servicing, the repairs, the steady throughput of a franchise tied to one of Australia's most familiar car brands. By the time this photograph was made in 2015, the service bays were silent. The precise date the Smith Street workshop ceased operations is not confirmed; what the photograph records is a building already in the interstitial period between function and demolition, its walls given over to street art and paint peel in roughly equal measure. The broader story closed formally on 17 February 2020, when General Motors announced the withdrawal of the Holden brand from Australia and New Zealand. Of the 185 Holden dealers still operating at that point, at least 120 accepted compensation packages by 30 June 2020, with total dealer compensation across the network close to $150 million. Holden ceased trading in Australia on 31 December 2020. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd's four entities had already consolidated under a single company name in September 2018. Willoughby City Council approved DA-2017/182 for a five-storey Woolworths development on the Smith Street site in March 2021. Demolition of the workshop followed. Woolworths Chatswood East opened on 26 October 2022. This photograph, made in 2015, is what remains of the hallway.