Having been in the car sales business for close to 10 years, Lance Harray is back in Ōpōtiki and providing the only local competition for this previous employer.

Harray Motors is the only car dealership in town aside from the big one – Magnus Lennie – with John Maynard’s Affordable Cars having closed recently after six years.

Mr Harray, who once worked at Magnus Lennie, is enjoying being back living and working in his hometown, he said.

“It’s great to be back and have my own business, even if that has meant being back to living with Mum and Dad,” he said. “They have been really supportive.”

Harray Motors has been open for about four months and currently has 18 cars for sale.

Mr Harray said he was focusing on medium-to-large New Zealand-new vehicles, ranging in price from $10,000 to $25,000.

“The cars are typically between five to six years old and have a mileage around 100,000 kilometres,” he said

He gets most of them from big dealers in Auckland.

“Flying Air Chathams up to Auckland, then taking an Uber to the dealership is a much better way of getting a car down here,” he said.

“I may get into imports later, but you’ll have lots of money tied up for the time it takes the car to get here and get cleared.”

Being a one-man band, apart from help from his parents, Ann and Adrian Harray, he does all the washing and grooming of the cars himself.

Mr Harray used the proceeds from the sale of his house in Gisborne to pay for the initial stock.

“I bought a cheap house over there, did it up completely and then sold it,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I missed out on selling it just prior to the floods – and selling after the floods knocked about $70,000 off the price.”

Mr Harray left Gisborne just before the floods to work at a large dealership in Morrinsville but kept the house because there were a few more improvements he wanted to make before selling it.