COVER
STORY
Kirinya
SPOTLIGHT
Road
The lubricants’
capital of Kenya
N
By Margaret
Mwaura
12
airobi’s Kirinyaga Road is a
Spare Parts and garage district.
Here, every other shop is
either a garage or stocks
lubricants and spare parts;
oily mechanics take over the
narrow swath that separates the shop from
the Nairobi River, while the spare parts shops
take on the spaces along the streets.
It is common to see vehicles stopped in or
alongside roadways, their bonnets opened
and mechanics in their oily overalls shouting
from one side to the other. One can obviously
tell that this area means business.
Looking around are shops of auto parts or
lubricants or garages, one cannot fail to notice
the tired looks of these mechanics as they go
about their work.
With the largest concentration of Jua Kali
mechanics in the country, Kirinyaga Road
provides a vibrant market for lubricants. As
you walk down this busy street, you will feel
the presence of all the major oil companies
like Total, Shell, KenolKobil and Oilibya
through the many walls branded with their
products, posters donning various spare
shops or even mechanics wearing overalls
bearing the names of their brands.
The Kirinyaga Road that we all know today
began in the late 1960s when small shops dealing with spare parts began to sprout either as
dealers or major franchise holders like CMC
for VW and Land Rover, Marshalls EA Ltd for
Peugeot, Hughes Limited for Ford vehicles
etc. Later these dealers expanded their business and started direct importation of spare
Lubezine Magazine | January-March 2012