The Ford Dealership Volume I: 1903-1954

Posted on Jul 16, 2018 in Featured | 2 comments

All photographs and captions, courtesy of The Ford Dealership Volume I: 1903-1954.

Car dealerships are, to most people, forgettable places. They exist simply to display inventory and, if all goes well, provide a place where paperwork can be signed. But automotive enthusiasts like Henry Dominguez, author of several Ford-focused books, tend to feel differently about them. Dominguez’s The Ford Dealership, Volume I: 1903-1954 recognizes that the Blue Oval’s success was built as much on the showroom floors and workshops of dealerships around America as on the assembly line at the factory.

A Ford dealer and his employees at an unknown Ford dealership, 1911. The Model T in the window appears to be a specially built “speedster.”

Dominguez honors these places and the people who worked in them with 404 glossy, heavyweight, 8.5 x 11-inch hardbound pages. The rare photographs he has unearthed of dealership exteriors, interiors and service and parts departments are well organized, thoroughly captioned and nearly impossible to stop studying. Several have been sourced from businesses that have been dealing in Ford cars, trucks and tractors for more than a century.

Ellensburg Auto Company, precursor to Kelleher Motor Company, Ellensburg, Oregon, 1911. Mr. Jack Kelleher is in the lead Model T. Kelleher Motor Company is still in business today.

“What a wonderful group of men and women these Ford dealers are,” Dominguez writes in the Foreword. “Not once was I turned down when I called looking for that elusive photograph he or she may have stashed away somewhere. No wonder Ford Motor Company became so successful.”

We’ve included a small sampling of these marvelous photographs, to give you a taste for what you’ll find parked between the covers. To order The Ford Dealership Volume I: 1903-1954, go to the Early Ford V-8 Foundation & Museum, where proceeds of the sale benefit their important mission. Cost: $49.95, plus S&H. www.fordv8foundation.org 260-927-8022

The Ford garage in Wild Horse, Wyoming, summer of 1917. Most of the automobiles in this dusty western town are Model Ts.

A group of mechanics busy at work overhauling a Model T at a Ford dealership in Denver, Colorado, circa 1919.

The Lincoln dealership spared no expense in outfitting its showroom for maximum affect. Sitting on the showroom floor is a massive 1922 Lincoln sedan.

Winter display at a Ford dealership in Detroit, Michigan, 1933.

Newly reconditioned 1933 Ford on a dealership’s used car lot, 1935.

While most Ford dealerships had a good supply of parts, this dealership’s parts department is both well supplied and neatly organized.

Expansive car lot of Russ Dawson Ford, Detroit, Michigan, 1941.

Other Ford dealers went into the business of engine rebuilding to keep the cars then in operation on the road. This is the engine rebuilding operations of the Titus Motor Company, Washington, circa 1945.

Ernest Beaudry, owner of Beaudry Motor Company, Atlanta, Georgia, posing with a line up of 1951 Ford trucks. [Given the proprietor’s last name, I couldn’t resist including this photograph.]

Ford dealership personnel and family members pose in front of a handsome 1951 Ford Victoria hardtop coupe.