Wagons in vintage Street scenes

Yeah....me, too, KK. When we were kids, and the new cars came out, we would go to East Washington Avenue in Madison where all the new car dealerships were located and go up and down the street and look at all the new models in the showrooms and in the lots. It was really a great time sitting in those new cars and dreaming about owning those cool cars.

 

SF, I would do the exact same thing in Westfield NJ, which was about 5 miles from my hometown of Cranford. Every Sept I'd ride my bike there and take in the new cars at all the dealerships. Reilly Oldsmobile, Lally Buick, Rotchford Pontiac, Benick Dodge, Westfield Ford, Norris Chevrolet and the Plymouth and AMC stores that I can't remember the name of. It was so much fun and I'd get so excited.

 

Yeah....those were the days, snoot.

 

Yup....
Owen Keown Chevrolet - Venice
Chevy dealer in Santa Monica (kept changing ownership)
Santa Monica Ford (where i bought my first car)
Claude Short Dodge, Santa Monica
Hart-Fullerton Chrysler-Plymouth, West LA
Martin Cadillac, West LA
Lynch Lincoln-Mercury, Santa Monica
Albertson Olds, Culver City

Many others that I forget - Pontiac, Ford and AMC dealers in West LA

 

Starting around 1970 and for a few years after, my parents would take me around to all the dealers at new car introduction time. Beautiful women would be on hand at some of the area dealers passing out refreshments and new car brochures. I was just a kid, but I remember Bob Peck Chevrolet in Arlington, Virginia would always have the prettiest women, the best refreshments and the most walk in traffic to see the new cars. It was always a party like atmosphere the first weekend of new car introduction time.
Then we would walk over to the Buick dealer next door, where there would also be at least a couple beautiful women passing out refreshments and brochures, but it would be alot quieter at the Buick dealer. Felt alot more formal.

 

KK, Hart Fullerton Chysler Plymouth was the first dealership that hired me as a sales rep. I worked from '78 until they closed in the Fall of '79. Once it shut down and I was jobless, decided to come back East and lived here ever since.

 

Yup...back around 1964-66 or so, I would go out on my bicycle (only 13-15 at that time...) and cruise the dealer back lots for the new cars. I would start in late August because some of the new models would start showing up around then. I remember a really big back lot of a Chevy dealer that was across the street from Hart-Fullerton - that's where I first saw the all-new '65 big Chevys....

 

As a kid, I lived about half a block from a Dekalb (seed corn) plant. One day in the fall of 1965 I was goofing off at the back of their facility and discovered the new 1966 Fords hidden in a storage barn before they were put in the showroom.

Seaking of the new car introductions - anyone remember the cutaway engines they used to display (I remember Chevy having them and the Corvair transaxle in the early '60's) in the showrooms?

 

Seaking = speaking. Sheesh...

 

More of a Milwaukee area thing, but do you remember those ads

"Who do you know, wants to buy a car?"

 

KK, that is such a coincidence! I remember "sneaking" a peak at the all new 65 full size Chevy's as well. Norris Chevrolet had a body shop with big windows in the front about a block away from the showroom. I, too, would start looking late in August, early in September, to be one of the first to see the new models and I thought their body shop may be where they were hiding them. Sure enough, eventhough they had cardboard or sheets covering those windows, there was a slit I could look through and saw the front end of a blue one. I remember thinking that they looked like a Cadillac because it had so much chrome and was so modern looking. Funny i still remember that after all these years, but I can't recall what I watched on tv last night.

 

The Chevy dealer in Ma. where I lived didn't have a showroom so everything was on the lot. We got to see 'em as we went by on the school bus. I distinctly remember the 64s as most memorable.