A COUPLE with 70 years of car dealing experience are set to retire.

David and Kate Atkinson, who run David Atkinson Car Sales have now sold all of the cars in their Dalton dealership ahead of their retirement.

After running the business for three decades, co-owner Kate said the two always had a plan once they reached 30 years.

She said: “We have been running the business for 30 years now and Dave has been in the trade for 40 years.

“We always had in our heads that 30 years would be retirement stage. so we have decided that now was a good time for us to retire.

"The car industry has changed an awful lot since we started the business.

“We have closed the workshop down, but haven’t put the shop on the market yet."

There has already been interest in the premises even though it is not currently for sale, Kate said.

Kate and David are now sorting through the shop ahead of leaving it.

Since making the announcing their retirement, Kate has been left feeling emotional after floods of messages from customers bombarded their Facebook page.

Kate said: "We have had lots and lots of lovely messages from customers over the last 30 years, which is bittersweet really.

"We have had customers who are not even from the local area, wishing us all the best for the future and that it was a pleasure buying from us.

"Some of them have been making me a little bit of emotional to be honest.

"A lot of our customers started out as customers and ended up becoming our friends."