Barrie Bros. Inc., Cadillac-Oldsmobile, Patchogue, NY.
Ingram Oldsmobile-Borgward, Camden, NJ.
Harbinson Oldsmobile, Morrisville, PA.
Byars Mc. Phail Oldsmobile, Natchez, MS.
Burlington Motors Co. Oldsmobile-Rambler, Burlington, NJ.
Hejahl Oldsmobile, Elmhurst, IL.
Kaputa Motor Sales, Chevrolet-Oldsmobile, Tionesta, PA.
Ryan Oldsmobile, Chula Vista, CA.
Burlington Motors Co. Oldsmobile-Rambler, Burlington, NJ.
Pryor Oldsmobile, Memphis, TN.
Pearson Oldsmobile, Sunnyvale, CA.
Paymond P. Scott Oldsmobile-Rambler, Ardmore, PA.
Erickson Olds Inc., Monsey, NY.
Love the photos. Thanks
Patchogue?
Yes, Patchogue. Fixed now. Thanks.
What’s that tiny little sedan outside of Ingram Oldsmobile ? First car to the right of the showroom. A Lloyd ? Fiat ?
Good question. I don’t think it’s either of those two, but I’m not sure and I have to run. Someone else will come up with it.
There was at least one dealer selling both Volkswagen and Borgward , it was Norden Motors in Edmonton Alberta.
Whatever it is, it was probably a trade-in on one of the (probably) 36 Borgward cars they sold that year. I wasn’t even previously aware that Borgward cars were ever sold in the US. I’m sure they sold thousands nationwide.
edit: I found that Borgward sold about 10,000 cars per year in the US from 1955-1961.
“By 1959 there were over 500 dealers in the United States. From 1955 to 1961 there were approximately 60,000 Borgward Isabellas, Goliaths, and Lloyds sold in the United States. In 1959 alone, US sales totaled 16,409: 8,573 Borgwards, 3,422 Goliaths, and 4,414 Lloyds.”
Follow up thought:
I find it hard to swallow that there were 500 dealers, but maybe there were. If that’s true, the average Borgward dealer sold 120 cars per year. It hardly seems worth it, taking into account the franchise costs, training costs, and the costs to stock a parts supply.
Ingram was a Borgward dealer, so maybe it’s a Lloyd. They probably had one guy in service that worked on those things…
I’ve changed my mind; it’s most likely a Lloyd. I didn’t notice the Borgward sign; that pretty much seals the deal.
I find it hard to swallow that there were 500 dealers, but maybe there were. If that’s true, the average Borgward dealer sold 120 cars per year. It hardly seems worth it, taking into account the franchise costs, training costs, and the costs to stock a parts supply.
There were hundreds of tiny import dealers in the ’50s; often even just gas stations selling one or two brands. There was no “franchise costs”; they just stocked one or two cars and a very limited supply of parts. This is precisely why Borgward, Lloyd and dozens of other obscure European brands didn’t survive the ’50s and why VW did. Terrible parts availability and horrible service. A recipe for failure. But the dealers made a pretty hefty profit on selling each car, until the party ended.
Most ’50s imports were also “dualed” with domestic makes. As of January 1, 1960, there were almost 12,000 import-domestic duals (most of those — 9,049 — “captive” imports like Opel) and only 2,678 dealers selling only imports. Of those, just 1,020 sold only one import brand.
Almost none of the imports had the market share to support standalone stores, and none of them were in a position to demand exclusivity. Their strongest pitch was to existing dealers who could spare some space in their existing facilities to take on an additional brand or two. Jeep was in the same position at this time.
Our neighbor when I was a kid sold Lloyds out of his house in our 100% residential neighborhood. One remained unsold and unused in his tiny 1920’s one car garage well into the 1970’s. And the guy across the street had a Borgward for several years.
That car is too square to be a Lloyd. I will go for a Ford Prefect 100E.
Maybe a Simca or Peugeot?
My dad had a ’58 Peugeot and a ’59 Simca. This might be one of them
It sure looks like a 1958 Fiat. When I was very young, around 5 or 6, my Dad’s friend had one and I asked him what kind of car it was as I was Pointing out the letters and he told me it spelled “fart” but I knew better!
Jonathan
It looks like an Opel Rekord.
Wow! I worked as a mechanic at Barrie Brothers Cadillac/Oldsmobile in Patchogue back in 1965 to late 1966, when I received an invitation to Vietnam. Went back to Barries after Vietnam, when I realized that’s not what I wanted to spend my life doing. Went to work for the phone company and then the cable TV company until retirement. Memories!
Wow, I remember Erickson Olds, but I believe it was in Talman NY, right next to Monsey. If I remember correctly, they also sold Bricklin cars, a sort of a Pantera wannabe.
Findlay Oldsmobile, Las Vegas, NV. The building still exists as a used car dealership. I remember driving by as a kid and staring at the space age design of the building and sign.
It has always been interesting that G M decided to pick Olds to be the second brand to introduce the V 8. Cadillac was a given.
I can see the logic – Olds, postwar, was fresh off of pioneering Hydra-Matic ahead of even Cadillac (whose buyers were to be spared experiments, at least at that point). They had long fielded both a 6 and an 8, both rapidly aging flatheads while Buick’s entire brand had been “valve-in-head straight eight” for years.
Pontiac was at the low end of the midprice market and didn’t need it as much while in the true low-price field Chevy’s ohv 6 was fully competitive with Ford’s flathead V8
Our local Olds dealer in Towson was Stu Berger Olds. Never been able to find a picture of it, it opened around ’62/64 I believe. In the Fall of 1966 we went there to see the new Toronado, the car in the showrooms was in Dubonnet dark red metallic, and a car that absolutely knocked me out at age 16. Our next door neighbors bought a ’65 Delta 88 coupe there for the Mrs, beautiful car in gunmetal blue metallic. The big Olds dealer in Baltimore was A.D.Anderson Olds.
Alaska Sales & Service, where my gr grandpa got his rocket 88.
I have seen photos Raymond Scott Oldsmobile’s showroom, but never its used car lot. I suspect that more than one of my grandmother’s trade-ins spent some time there, given that Scott was where she bought a number of Oldsmobiles over the years. I love the flag array that goes with the dealer’s sailboat logo.
I was recently made aware of a surviving Oldsmobile dealership sign in the town of Fincastle, Virginia (in Botetourt County). I think the dealership itself, Fincastle Oldsmobile, closed slightly before the brand went defunct. I’m sure there’s a few other surviving Olds dealer signs out there, but there can’t be many.
Google StreetView image and link below:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tKXK9yWPEWRPvxRx7
After college in the very early ’90s I lived in Burlingame, CA for a while, it’s a fairly upscale community south of San Francisco and there was (and still is) a dealership named Rector Porsche Audi (and now formerly) Oldsmobile. It was an odd pairing then and still exists as Rector Porsche-Audi today along with significant building renovations etc, looking like some sort of tech palace. I well recall seeing truckloads with Porsche 911s, 968s and the odd 928GTS being unloaded and parked next to Achievas, Silhouettes etc (and a smaller section of Audi 100s and 90s)…Somehow it sort of worked.
I can’t even imagine where Olds would fit into that dealership combination today if they had survived. The sign came down seemingly before the last Olds was off the lot…
Raymond P. Scott Oldsmobile (Picture 12) in suburban Philadelphia was another odd pairing. They added Saab to their Olds franchise in the 1970s. At some point, Saab got its own building, but that was probably like Porsche-Audi, where there’d be no crossover buyers between the two makes.
I wonder if they ever imagined that Saab would become part of the GM “family” a few decades later…Or that it would outlast Olds!
While not having ever visited suburban Philadephia, I envision an area that would be quite receptive to Olds with lots of Vista Cruisers and B-body Cutlass Cruiser wagons, but by the 1980s also very much a Saab market.
If Ingram Olds has that worn out Hudson in the front of the lot, I shudder to think of what is in the back row.
Pearson Olds in Sunnyvale California is now a Stellantis dealership. And I think Patrick Bell is correct; the small car at Ingram is an English Ford.
Returning once more to that little European car at Ingram’s: It strikes me as being something French or Italian—certainly not a Borgward or a Lloyd. I would most likely identify it as a Simca Aronde.
All those postcard contributions are consistently magnificen. Each a piece of cultural history.
Some of these dealership buildings are so pretty .
-Nate