About Us
Auto Court is Dunedin’s leading Japanese imported vehicle retailer proudly serving
the motoring community since 1963.
Neil Cottle commenced business at C&C Motors with his father Syd soon after leaving
school in 1954. In 1959 he went on to Civic Motors.
In 1963 Neil established Auto Court in a new purpose-built showroom on Ardmore Drive.
Staff included his brothers Mervyn in the service department and Barry in sales.
Neil’s mother Mavis joined Auto Court in 1965 as Office Manager until her retirement
in 2000 . Bob Woodford joined the Auto Court sales team in 1964 and is still with
the company today.
Auto Court shifted to King Edward Street in 1969 when the Ardmore Drive site was
required for the Southern Motorway.
In the early days new cars were strictly controlled by import licencing. Waiting
lists of two years were not uncommon for a new car and the buyer had to sign a covenant
that they would offer the car back to the selling dealer if they sold it within
two years of purchase. Because of this a second hand car was often more expensive
than a new one!
In 1988 import licencing was abolished and Auto Court became involved as one of
the pioneers directly importing vehicles from Japan. Neil’s oldest son Mark set
up a network of contacts in Japan to source only genuine late model, low kilometre
quality cars. The demand for these high spec vehicles soon became so great that
it became essential to find larger premises to accommodate the extra vehicles and
additional staff required to meet demand.
In 1989 Neil sold the King Edward Street premises and moved to a large indoor/outdoor
site on the corner of Andersons Bay Road and Crawford Street and his son Nelson
joined the staff fulltime having previously worked at Auto Court part time during
weekends and school holidays.
After 24 years at the Andersons Bay site Auto Court are pleased to announce that
they are now operating from their new 1500 square metre purpose-built showroom on
the corner of Burns and Neville Streets, near the historic Carisbrook Rugby Ground.
It has always been Auto Court’s goal to establish long-term loyal relationships
with our customers and we pride ourselves on our aftersales service. Your inspection
will confirm we have the best range of quality low kilometre Japanese cars around.
At Auto Court every fresh import that arrives from Japan goes through a comprehensive
VTNZ compliance check followed by a service that includes changing the oil and filter
and fitting a FM band expander. The car is then detailed by one of our experienced
groomers. All our fresh imports include on road costs.
We have thousands of satisfied customers throughout the country. Ask about our nationwide transport options and our flexible finance packages at competitive rates.
You can view our full range or Japanese imported cars, NZ made cars and Nissan Leaf electric cars online here or call us on 03 455 3000to book a test drive.