Tuesday, December 31, 2019

I get a kick out of so many things related to vehicles, and one is how someone started a car dealership way back when cars were an invention, you know, 100 years ago -ish

Otto P. Graff, founder of the Graff Chevrolet that bore his name for many years, signed an agreement with the Ford Motor Company in 1914 to sell 125 cars a year.

As the treasurer of Genesee County from 1910 until 1914, Mr. Graff was well known to the Flint banking community. When Ford removed the previous dealer they asked Mr. Graff, as the treasurer of the county, who he thought would make a good dealer. He replied "I would".

He had often looked out his office window and thought "if I had $1 for every car in and out of that Ford dealership it would be a good thing". And so, with $600, which he and his wife Flora had saved, and high hopes, the new enterprise was launched as the Ford Sales Company. It was located on N. Saginaw Street, just north of the Flint River. The first year was encouraging with sales exceeding the 125 car quota and reaching the 150 mark.

The business continued to grow and in 1924 a new sales peak of 2,400 vehicles was reached. Three years later in 1927, the Model T was discontinued, and for 18 months there were no Fords available as the company converted to the Model A.

With the advent of the Model A, business looked good again. Then came the disaster - the Depression of 1929. Otto P. Graff lost everything he had worked so hard to achieve.

He stayed in business though, but on a line of credit from the bank who knew that tough times don't last, tough people do. So they paid him $75 a month until things recovered

Cars were not manufactured during World War II as all manufacturing facilities were dedicated to the war effort. As a result there was huge pent up demand following the end of the war. Much to the chagrin of Mr. Graff, Ford decided to take Lincoln and Mercury away at the time when over 2,000 orders with deposits were on hand. During the entire year of 1946, Ford allocated only 176 cars and trucks to Graff, leaving many customers very unhappy. It required another 2 ½ years to clean up the backlog of orders.

In 1982, a drastic step was to be taken for two reasons. First, General Motors gave all of its employees the option to purchase any General Motors vehicle below dealer cost. At that time, about 50% of the Fords sold by Graff were to the United Auto Workers members employed at General Motors. Graff could not be price competitive with Ford vehicles. Secondly, Ford had a continual problem keeping a second successful dealer in Flint and had purchased that dealership and it appeared Ford would continue to operate a factory owned dealership in Flint.

Max and Hank discovered that Uptegraff Chevrolet was for sale in Davison, and within two weeks, they were able to consummate a purchase deal. Ford was notified that Graff would give up their franchise as of August 1, 1982, and Hank Graff signed a Chevrolet franchise agreement on August 2, 1982.

At the time of the acquisition, Graff and Uptegraff were the two oldest family held dealerships in Genesee County - Uptegraff for 60 years and Graff for 68 years. The new Graff Chevrolet has been a very successful operation as evidenced by the fact that 4,703 vehicles were retailed in 1986. That was the 95th largest sales volume in the United States and second largest among the Chevrolet dealers in Michigan.

Their history gets far more complicated as their ownership of other dealerships grew, but you've already read the important part. Having a dealership is no walk in the park when manufacturing companies can't hold up their part. Also, in 2009, Chevrolet shut down business with a lot of dealerships, including one with this family.

https://www.hankgraffdavison.com/about/

No comments:

Post a Comment