The
Auto
Dealership
Selling Cars
 Shopping for a
touring car? Want four doors? Do you need to transport up to seven
passengers and their luggage?
Step right up and
see this elegant 1925 touring car. Made by the Flint Motor
Company, it cost almost $2,000 in 1925. Its engine was made by the
Continental Motors Company of Muskegon. The Flint Motor
Company was part of Durant Motors, founded by William C. Durant in 1921.
Durant had also founded and organized the General Motors Company in
1908.
 The 1919 Michigan
State Gazetteer and Business Directory listed 584 auto dealers. By
1925 that number had jumped to 1,475. Even small villages boasted one or
two dealerships. They sold autos, auto parts and accessories. Dealers
also changed oil, put air in tires and repaired bodies and engines.
To market their
cars nationally, auto manufacturers began to create sophisticated print
ads and slogans. Early auto advertisements touted the cars' mechanical
features. Advertising during the 1920s focused on comfort, luxury,
dependability and power. Increasingly, the ads featured women.
Filling Your Tank
 Motorists began
pumping gasoline from pumps on street curbs around 1910. Attached to
underground storage tanks, these pumps replaced the barrels or small
tanks often found behind a store or in a yard. Curbside gasoline pumps
began giving way to drive-up gas stations during the 1920s.
Making Auto Parts
Auto parts
companies provided tires, car bodies, spark plugs, canvas covers,
transmissions, automotive lamps and more to the booming auto industry.
Some of these
companies began in Michigan; others moved from different states to be
near successful car companies. Together they made Michigan the center of
auto parts manufacturing.
The Continental
Motor Manufacturing Company of Chicago moved its engine-making concern
to Muskegon in 1905. Weston-Mott, manufacturer of wheels and axles,
moved to Flint from Utica, New York, in 1907.
Some of the larger
auto parts suppliers established by 1920 included Hayes Manufacturing,
Fisher Body and Kelsey Wheel.
|
