Wise Imperial, Chrysler, Plymouth, Houston, TX.
Werner Chrysler-Plymouth, Summit, NJ.
Bryant – Rowe Motors Inc., Chrysler-Plymouth, Williamsburg, VA.
Harris Motor, Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, Bloomfield, IA.
Roy Burnett Motors, Plymouth, Chrysler, Imperial, Portland, OR.
Gegnas Plymouth, Chrysler, Imperial, Philadelphia, PA.
Danville Chrysler-Plymouth, Danville, VA.
Walter G. Southworth Inc., Chrysler-Plymouth, New Milford, CT.
Those 61 Plymouths were UGLY. Even a 58 Chevy looks pretty next to it.
Agree!
Didn’t care for the “60”, version either. The wagon iteration, though, seemed to carry it off.
Do a google maps search for 750 Memorial Dr in Danville VA for the modern view of Danville Chrysler-Plymouth.
Danville Chrysler Plymouth has not one, not two , but three Subaru FF -1’s.
I remember Gegnas Chrysler-Plymouth from when I lived in Philadelphia. Their ad slogan was always something about “No Bull” and the dealership’s ads often featured bulls of some kind.
They lasted at that location until the late-2000s Chrysler dealer shakeup.
Dealership postcards usually paint a flattering image – a nice shot of the building plus some noteworthy new cars.
Harris Motors in Iowa here seems to be an exception – a postcard featuring the service bay entrance. A curious choice of framing and staging.
Thinking it’s the service door and showroom and etc.. Could be wrong though.
That Iowa dealership reminds me of some of the small – town dealers I’d see growing up in rural Iowa/Illinois in the late 50’s – early 70’s… some dated from the ’20’s, that one is very typical…
Could that be a couple of 340 Dusters at Danville?
I think those may be “Twisters”, which had tape stripes and hood scoops but no muscle. Slant 6 or 318 only, they were intended as a cheaper (and insurable) alternative to the 340 that still had the ‘image”. I don’t think those hood scoops came with the 340 Duster, oddly enough.
Sort of like the Maverick Grabber or the Rally Nova from the same time frame.
I’m not really great at identifying Chrysler products, but Walter G. Southworth appears to be 1972 or ’73. That makes it really odd that they’re offering “Valiant” to be a separate marque, when that ended in 1962(?).
And old Walter really liked his French cars, despite their ever-decreasing sales volume in the US by the 70s. I think that’s a Renault 8. Even being on the East Coast, I can’t imagine Southworth sold more than a couple dozen Renault 8 per year.
I grew up in a very conservative Pennsylvania town that is also the site of a state college. There were faculty members who drove Citroens, Renaults and Saabs. (Our one neighbor, who was a professor at the college, drove a Citroen DS station wagon!)
There are a fair number of colleges and universities located near New Milford, Connecticut, so there may have been more customers for those Renaults than one would think.
What strikes me about the photo is the young gentleman proudly standing in front the Plymouth Satellite Sebring. He looks like a professional athlete or some sort of local celebrity.
Fair, but the 8 was a fairly old design by ’72, and I’m not sure how desirable the model was by that point. I rooted around the ‘net, and it was tough to find Renault’s US sales figures in the era, but I’ve seen numbers from 10,000-16000 total sales per year. That’s almost infinitesimal.
A few years later they had a brief sales bump from the 5/Le Car, but shortly thereafter they closed their US dealer network and were sold at AMC dealers.
I checked the Walter G. Southworth dealer picture to see them selling also Peugeot is a kind of predictive programmng today with Stellantis.
Also on a slightly off-topic sidenote, I saw on Ebay this old postcard photo of a Chrysler dealer Down Under in Australia from circa 1970.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/293017204281
Commer trucks and Vans became Dodges down this way around 70 Commer was deleted as a brand
I would say 1971. The green Satellite and maroon Fury are ’71’s, while the white Belvedere, blue Duster and the Newport in the showroom are all ’70 models. Perhaps in the fall of ’70 right after the ’71’s came out.
i remember Gegnas from my college days in Philadelphia.
Plymouth gradually disappeared as a brand here in the 60s, local assembly ramped down and only Imports from Aussie could be got new, Exner cars were locally assembled by Todd motors but only Canadian cars and as a cold war motors viewer I know they didnt send everything CKD, but I like em, space craft on wheels.
I was curious about Wise Imperial, Chrysler, Plymouth since, as a life-long Houstonian (60+ years), I had never heard of it. Superficial research indicates it was opened in 1957 at 5819 Gulf Freeway (Interstate 45) at the corner with Wayside Drive (US 90). Currently, that location is a strip shopping center with the requisite check cashing place, dentist office, and osteria (fish market) among other businesses.
There used to be several automobile dealerships along this part of the freeway including Pontiac (later AMC), Oldsmobile, and Lincoln-Mercury. Notably, most of those marques no longer exist though there is a Lincoln dealership further south on the freeway along with several others selling the more popular brands.
I looked into this dealership too, and I think the reason you’d never heard of it is because it was around for just 1 year.
The dealership opened as Judd-Monroe Chrysler in 1950. One of the founding partners was E. Monroe Wise, who was principally a rancher (owned the W. Bar Ranch near Corrigan). In 1956, Wise bought out his partner and the dealership became Monroe Chrysler for a while, and then Wise Chrysler in 1957. However, the following year, Monroe Wise changed the dealership’s name yet again to Freeway Motors. Probably not a great idea to change a business’s name three times in three years.
For what ever reason, Wise sold the business in 1958. The property was used as a Ford dealership for many years afterwards.
Thank you for the information, Eric. The history of that dealership is interesting indeed. Now you have me wondering which Ford dealership was at that location. There were so many in the city over the years but I cannot remember one on the Gulf Freeway inside Loop 610 unless it was Bob Currie Ford.
Yes, it was Bob Currie – sort of.
The first Ford dealer there was Thad Felton Ford, and then shortly afterwards, Hemphill Ford took over (they also had another Houston location). In 1963, it became Jim Sanders Ford. Sanders was Hemphill’s general manager, and he and a partner, Bob Currie, acquired the company. In 1970, Currie bought out Sanders, renamed the dealership Bob Currie Ford, but Currie quickly moved the business to a bigger location about two miles down Gulf Freeway (7200 Gulf). Currie used the original building as a used car lot for a while, but the site was sold and went into non-automotive use in the early 1970s.
As for Bob Currie, that lasted a few years and then became Charlie Thomas Ford, which remained at 7200 Gulf until the late 1990s.
I’m searching for an original photo circa 1950-1970 of Faddis Motor Co., Kansas City Mo. Address was 6228 Main St. Attached image what building looks like now. Appreciate any help. Thank you!