Just over an hour’s drive south of Johannesburg you will find Lemon Garage in Vanderbijlpark. We pay them a visit to take a look at their tantalising collection of cars that are for sale.
Words and pictures Wilhelm Lutjeharms
As I walk in I immediately feel at home. A sofa, some books and magazines on the table, a coffee machine and some selective memorabilia make this corner of the showroom feels rather homely.
I sit down and look along the line of perfectly parked cars. There are mostly Porsches, but those are not the only cars Lemon Garage sells. At the back are a number of other European classics in the shape of Alfa Romeos, a Karmann Ghia and even a 1981 Ferrari 400 Auto. The cars are clean and each of them have the information you will need as a potential buyer on a laminated document on the windscreen.
But back to the Porsches, of which several are pretty special and, uhm, high-end... These include a 991 GT3 RS, a 991.2 Porsche 911 Speedster, a rare 993 Carrera 4S and a 996.2 GT3 RS.
There are even a couple of 997 Carrera Cabriolets. In a building next door are another few cars. There is even a Porsche 924 Turbo for sale and a deal has just been done on a E92 BMW M3 as well as a mint BMW 635 CSi - a very refreshing variety of European cars indeed...
The man behind this operation is Angus Webber as well as two of his sons, Daniel and Luke. There is an immediate level of professionalism about him, but after two decades working at Porsche South Africa, that is to be expected. He explains how Lemon Garage was founded.
“I’ve always been a car enthusiast. My family had a car parts business when I was younger, but it actually started before then. When I was around five years old, my older brother bought is first car. When he serviced his car, he gave me the old parts and he also bought me a toolbox. Since then I’ve been interested in cars. From the age of 16 I worked part-time in our family’s parts business.”
During the early 2000s Angus was employed by Porsche South Africa. He first worked in the parts department. One thing led to another and soon Angus moved over to the pre-owned side of the operation. “I thoroughly enjoyed this side of the business.”
Over the years Angus has been responsible for, with the assistance of Toby Venter – proprietor of Porsche South Africa – for uplifting the pre-owned side of the business and putting it on the map. “For example, we had our own Porsche pre-owned number plate made, and we were the first dealership globally to do this.”
That is just a small example, as Angus also proposed using one building exclusively for pre-owned cars. It was modernised and Angus proposed having a small coffee shop inside the dealership. Several questions were asked, but in the end the coffee shop was done. The rest, as they say, is history as Porsche’s coffee shop is now legendary.
After a successful career at Porsche, Angus decided to resign as he had been thinking about starting his own business for a number of years.
“I started at my dining room table, with a single car in stock. A client gave me a 996 Turbo to sell. Next up was a Cayman GT4 I sold and then I borrowed money to buy two cars to sell.”
Today, some of the stock in Lemon Garage’s showroom is on consignment, while there are also a number of cars the company has bought to sell to potential buyers. Selective trade-ins are also welcomed.
“The name Lemon Garage is a little tongue-in-cheek. In the industry a “lemon” refers to really bad car purchase. When you’ve bought a car from us, we also give the new owner a framed certificate stating that you’ve bought a lemon. Of course, we don’t sell lemons at all and I will comfortably offer any of these cars to my best friend.”
Angus explains that when a car comes in to be offered for sale, there is a strict process they follow. This includes checking the details of the service history, the condition of the tyres and the overall condition of the car. In some instances, having worked at Porsche for numerous years, he knows the cars.
“Once I moved away from Porsche, I learned that some of the Porsche owners also collect other brands, for example Volkswagens and Land Rovers. The result is that they will now approach me to sell some of these cars as well.
“My sons have fitted perfectly well into the business. Both of them have finished their studies and both are passionate about cars. In the evenings around the dinner table I sometimes feel for my wife, as we are constantly be talking about cars!”
Currently Lemon Garage is, and has been, shipping cars countrywide and has also exported some cars. Angus makes it very clear that they always try to find a local buyer first, but sometime the market is very strong overseas.
To visit their stock list, head over to their website.