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Oldest Cadillac Dealer

Started by Terry Wenger CLC # 1800, September 24, 2007, 09:33:11 AM

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Tom Hall 7485

Sewell's web site says they have been in the car business since 1911 and that may be so, but there has not been a Cadillac retailer by the name of Sewell anywhere near that long in Texas.  Many Cadillac retailers started with other brands and I think that's the situation with Sewell.  I think Sewell became a Cadillac retailer in Dallas around 1967. Earlier Cadillac retailers in Dallas were Prather and Lone Star (the DeSanders family).

Claude Nolan, Inc. had their 100th anniversary bash two years ago.  The trouble is that Claude is not listed as a dealer or agent in the 1908-9 International Motor Cyclopaedia, a multi-volume Who's Who of auto-related businesses. ???  So, I must research whether he can be found in other business directories 1905-10, or on Cadillac's shipping records for that period.  If he cannot be found in them, then he probably started in the Cadillac business around 1911, when he opened his new showroom in Jacksonville, Florida. 
Tom Hall, CLC Member 7485, Lifetime member since the mid-1990s.

Rusty Shepherd CLC 6397

Tom,
Was H. B. McDaniel the only Cadillac dealer in Houston in the '30's and '40's?  When did Bland aka Bland-Willis and Bland-Curran come on board with Cadillac?
Thanks.

Tom Hall 7485

McDaniel was the only wholesaler of Cadillacs headquartered in Houston in the 1930s and during WWII, but I don't know who all the retailers were in that area at that time.  I haven't spent much time fleshing out Texas yet. :-[  It had lots of Cadillac retailers.

Bland-Willis became the distributor (wholesaler) for the territory headquartered in Houston between 1945 and 1957, but I can't narrow it down just yet.  Nor do I know the extent of the territory but I can make some educated guesses.  Whether Mr. Bland started as one of McDaniel's wholesale customers, I don't know yet.  If not, Bland-Willis probably opened their retail store in Houston between 1945 and 1957.  A study of local advertising will tell.  Willis had been general manager of McDaniel.  I don't know about Curran.

Bland-Willis had one of the top Cadillac salesmen in the country in the late 1960s, a Mr. Medlenka.

Do you happen to know whether McDaniel or Bland-Willis had other GM brands in the showroom?
Tom Hall, CLC Member 7485, Lifetime member since the mid-1990s.

Rusty Shepherd CLC 6397

#23
Tom,
This is what I know (from my late uncle who was a friend of Neil Bland) of the evolution from Bland-Willis to Bland-Curran to just Bland: Mr. Willis retired and Neil Bland took his son-in-law, Curran, in as a partner.  Then when Curran and Neil Bland's daughter divorced, he was booted out and the dealership became just Bland.  I'm not sure on the years these changes occurred, but I have a Seville brochure from the 1975 introduction party I attended there and it's stamped Bland-Curran. I saw a like-new yellow '83 SDV the other day and it had a chrome Bland emblem on it, so it was back to Bland by then. The second major Cadillac dealer was Higham which opened in 1953 on Kirby Drive on the edge of Houston's finest neighborhood, River Oaks (Bland, et al was downtown). Rollie McGinnis was Mr. Higham's general manager and he later purchased the dealership and subsequently moved it out on the Katy Freeway (I-10 West) and renamed it McGinnis Cadillac.  Rollie is now retired and his son, Kevin, runs this fine dealership from which I have purchased three cars. I know for certain that Bland, et al, was Cadillac-only for most of its history, but it did handle Saab for a short period long before it was a GM brand. The couple of advertisements I've run across in old Houston papers for H. B. McDaniel showed only Cadillacs and I would guess they were exclusively Cadillac as Earl North (Buick only) and Rountree (Oldsmobile only) had very strong Houston dealerships during that period and multi-GM dealerships were scarce, if not unheard of, in Houston for many years, unlike the more rural areas of Texas.  One town, Kerrville, northwest of San Antonio, had a dealership named Peterson's Garage that carried all five GM makes for many years.

Tom Hall 7485

Thanks very much for that.  It helps me understand the timing.  Curran was not in the name as of spring 1970 (per Insider magazine for 3d qtr 1970), so he must have become a partner between spring 1970 and spring 1975.
Tom Hall, CLC Member 7485, Lifetime member since the mid-1990s.

nannyb52

Quote from: Tom Hall 7485 on November 09, 2007, 10:01:15 AM
McDaniel was the only wholesaler of Cadillacs headquartered in Houston in the 1930s and during WWII, but I don't know who all the retailers were in that area at that time.  I haven't spent much time fleshing out Texas yet. :-[  It had lots of Cadillac retailers.

Bland-Willis became the distributor (wholesaler) for the territory headquartered in Houston between 1945 and 1957, but I can't narrow it down just yet.  Nor do I know the extent of the territory but I can make some educated guesses.  Whether Mr. Bland started as one of McDaniel's wholesale customers, I don't know yet.  If not, Bland-Willis probably opened their retail store in Houston between 1945 and 1957.  A study of local advertising will tell.  Willis had been general manager of McDaniel.  I don't know about Curran.

Bland-Willis had one of the top Cadillac salesmen in the country in the late 1960s, a Mr. Medlenka.

Do you happen to know whether McDaniel or Bland-Willis had other GM brands in the showroom?

g27g28

I did a little research on the Greenlease family, famous for the kidnapping, and on their website it states that they became the first distributors west of the Mississippi in 1908.  That seems a little late to me but maybe they are correct.  I do know they grew into what had to be the biggest distributor in the 40s and 50s.  It said they sold out in 1970.  I would like to know which dealer is still in their original locations.  So many dealers gave up their old downtown locations and move to some sprawling multi make mega center that has no class or character. 
1941 Series 62
1954 Coupe DeVille
1978 Phaeton
1980 Fleetwood

Jim Stamper


     Ten or so years ago there was a  Self Starter article covering this very subject. As I recall, Miller Cadillac of White River Junction, Vermont was one of two oldest. The Miller family still owns the dealership I believe though it is just across border in Lebanon, New Hampshire now.
                     
      I used to visit with Mr Miller son of the founder. He had spent his entire life around Cadillac and LaSalles. Mr Miller knew a lot about the subject.

                   Jim Stamper CLC#13470

Bill Young

In 1908 The " Mabbett-Bettys Motor Car Co." on Court Street just east of Clinton Avenue was begun in Rochester New York and sold Cadillac's , also I know their following came Valley Cadillac starting in 1936.