Fifty-four years
on the same corner.
The street has changed three times around it. The cars have changed every week. The floor stays where it was: 185 Arden Street, North Melbourne, owned outright since 1972.
Nick. Same hands, fifty-four years on.
Born in Cyprus in 1951, in Melbourne by 1958, on a Holden lot in Carlton at fourteen. By 1972 he had bought the Arden Street corner outright with a handshake from his father. He still walks the floor each morning and is usually the first hand a customer shakes.
The cars have changed. The marques have changed. The position has not.
Founding, workshop, classic, station.
The corner has had four major events. Each one changed the floor without moving it.
The handshake
Two Holdens on gravel and a corner bought outright. A bet on patience that takes half a century to land.
Workshop in-house
Bays open upstairs. Every car the floor sells now passes through the workshop on its way out. Mechanical file follows the chassis.
Classic floor
Pre-war Bentleys, ‘60s Ferraris, ‘70s Jaguars come through alongside the modern stock. The dual register becomes the brand.
Arden Station
Metro Tunnel opens. Arden Station sits across the road. The blocks adjacent are now one of Melbourne’s largest urban renewals.
Every stop along the way.
From a Cyprus birth to the Metro Tunnel anchor. The floor has only ever moved upstairs.
- 1951
Cyprus.
Nick Theodossi is born in Cyprus, the youngest of three. The family will leave for Melbourne when he is seven.
- 1958
Brunswick.
Arrival in Melbourne via a cousin who emigrated to Brunswick in the late 1940s. Nick learns English on a school playground.
- 1965
A Holden lot, age fourteen.
A part-time job at a Holden dealership in Carlton. The trade enters his hands before he is old enough to drive.
- 1972
The corner.
Nick buys 185 Arden Street outright. Two Holdens on gravel, a handshake from his father. The street is warehouses and panel beaters and the rent is cheap.
- 1986
Workshop bays.
Service moves upstairs, in-house. The decision is deliberate: every car the floor sells passes through the workshop on its way out, every car a customer brings back goes the same way.
- Late 1980s
The pivot to prestige.
Mercedes and Porsche replace Commodores on the floor. The shift is not strategy, it is the customer mix: Carlton accountants, Brunswick wholesalers, doctors who live along the river.
- 1998
Kayne joins.
The eldest son starts at seventeen. Accounts first, then retail and wholesale. The handover from one generation begins.
- 2002
Nicholas Jnr joins.
The second son joins the family business. Prestige and customisation become his beat.
- 2003
The classic floor.
Pre-war Bentleys, ‘60s Ferraris, ‘70s Jaguars come through alongside the modern stock. The dual register, new prestige and classic, becomes the brand.
- 2013
Australia Day Ambassador.
Nick is appointed an Australia Day Ambassador. Community events across Victoria become part of the calendar.
- Nov 2025
Arden Station.
The Metro Tunnel opens. Arden Station sits directly across the road from the showroom, anchor of an $11 billion precinct forecast to add 34,000 jobs and 20,000 residents to the corner by 2051.
- Today
The floor holds.
Nick still walks the floor each morning. Three of his children run the business with him. The cars on the gravel are no longer two Holdens, but the position is the same as it was fifty-four years ago.