Eileen Lovett from Galway has been buying cars from Higgins Motorpark/ Higgins Garage since 1929 and just this week she collected her 23rd car from the garage, a 2010 Ford Focus which she has bought for her daughter.
Mrs Lovett, who will turn 99 this year, began driving at 12 years of age in her home town of Clifden where her family ran a bakery business, Lydon’s. While still at primary school, her first journey as a driver was in 1923 when her mother asked her to collect some butter in the bakery van.
Then at age 17 she bought her first Ford from Higgins Garage in Galway (which went on to become Motorpark ). It was a Ford 14.9 model that cost £198. Eileen loved it from the first day she drove it and went on to clock up thousands of miles, delivering goods from the bakery to hotels and schools around Connemara and beyond.
After two years of driving for the family bakery, Eileen went to Dublin where she trained as a nurse in Jervis Street Hospital. She had a short career in nursing before she married Michael Lovett, a school teacher, in 1938. However Eileen always went back to Higgins Motorpark in Galway when she needed a new car.
Even at 98 years of age, Eileen can list by heart all her 22 Ford cars including the registration numbers.
“It is rare in today’s Ireland to hear of such a level of loyalty to one brand”, says Eddie Murphy, chairman and managing director of Ford Ireland. “Eileen is probably Ford’s longest-standing customer in the country, and I hope she has many more years of safe motoring in her family’s new 2010 Focus.”
