Choosing “Lost” Dealerships
By the late 1960s, a “tuff” image was part of the muscle car formula. A lot of people who bought these cars spent their time cruising and hanging out, not tinkering or waiting in line to run at a drag strip. At the end of 1969, General Motors had 14,000 dealerships and Ford had 6,000. Add in Lincoln-Mercury, Chrysler, and AMC, and that is an insane number of dealers! For every dealer that made some effort to specialize in muscle cars, there were hundreds if not thousands more that wouldn’t touch performance with a 10-foot pole.
Some readers will throw this book at the wall and demand to know why I am clogging up the works with offbeat muscle dealers. Readers who challenge the inclusion of some lesser players will have a perfectly legitimate point. However, these dealer specials fit in with the cool muscle image machines.
After all of the statistics and facts are sifted, documented, and digested, the real point is that the golden era of muscle cars was a fun one. The owners and cars had attitude, and that excitement gave dying dealerships a second life, allowing dealers to really run with the muscle movement. The rare dealers that exploited the performance angle were pioneers who deserve remembrance, which is why they are included in this book.
CHAPTER 1
CLIPPINGER CHEVROLET AND RUSS DAVIS FORD
Clippinger Chevrolet
Location: Covina, California
Years in Operation: 1921–circa 2005
Founder(s): Isaiah Hale Clippinger
Current Status: Overflow lot
Russ Davis Ford
Location: Covina, California
Years in Operation: 1925–1972
Founder(s): Russell W. Davis
Current Status: Vacant
Clippinger Chevrolet’s original building is shown in this promotional photograph. The Clippinger Chevrolet sign atop the building is typical of signage from the early 1960s. When Clippinger built its new premises in 1967, the sign became simpler and less ornate. (Photo Courtesy J Scott Shannon, Covina Past Blog)
Fortuitous dealer locations sometimes resulted in some healthy competition between adjacent dealerships during the muscle car era. Yeakel Plymouth and Sachs & Sons were across the street from one another, which incited each dealership to display hotter and more outrageous cars on the lots and to field wilder machines at the strip under their sponsorships. Up north in Canada, Mander Chevrolet Oldsmobile and Conroy Pontiac Buick pushed one another to new heights of dealer specialty cars.
Covina, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, retains a small-town feel. Good neighborly respect meant that the rivalry between Clippinger Chevrolet and Russ Davis Ford was muted somewhat by goodwill from both sides of San Bernardino Road, where the dealers faced one another.
Clippinger Chevrolet
Late 1960s advertising proclaimed that Clippinger Chevrolet was California’s oldest Chevy dealership. The dealership was located in West Covina, California, and held honors for the most Corvettes sold by a single individual. That individual was Bob Wingate, who was lionized as the single biggest individual volume Corvette salesman in all of the United States.
Founder Isaiah Hale Clippinger was born on October 4, 1877, in Iowa and began his auto career in 1917. Hale established Clippinger Chevrolet at 7th and Central in Los Angeles in 1921. He moved the dealership from downtown Los Angeles to 137 W. San Bernardino Road in Covina in 1929.
The Clippinger neon sign still stands at the corner of Citrus in Covina. This dealership was state of the art in 1967. Now, the lot serves as temporary overflow parking for foreign dealerships.
Hale’s son Norman H. Clippinger (born January 14, 1913) became vice president of the dealership beginning in 1933. In the 1940s, Hale bought back the first car he ever sold (a 1921 Chevy) to display as an advertising gimmick and a good luck talisman. Soon, high-performance cars proved to be luckier!
Russ Davis Ford
Russ Davis Ford was a successful Covina Ford dealer housed at various Citrus Street locations. In the 1940s, Russ Davis Ford moved directly across from the Clippinger Chevrolet lot. The new Russ Davis location at 116 San Bernardino served as a constant reminder to both dealerships about their immediate competition.
Russell W. Davis was born around 1899 in Quincy, Illinois. His family moved to Seattle, Washington, when he was nine. They quickly headed south to sunny California, where his father, Henry S. Davis, was a school superintendent.
Russell began college at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), but he had to leave school for officer training for World War II. After the war, he began working at Los Angeles Gas and Electric. He soon left there and found his true calling as a Ford salesman in Los Angeles dealerships.
Russell and Ira E. Escobar partnered in their own El Segundo Ford agency at the start of 1925. In October 1925, Russell branched out on his own when he bought the Pottinger auto business. The Pottinger garage was in the Weegar Building at 320 North Citrus Road at School Street, Covina. Russ renamed the business R. W. Davis Ford Garage.
Russell wed Dorothy N. Newberry. Their son, Richard R. Davis, was born in 1931. Richard would later prove to be a very important part of Russell’s success in the muscle car era.
Russell’s Ford franchise did well enough to warrant a move in 1930 to a larger location on 543 North Citrus at Geneva Place. The prestigious Lincoln lineup was added to the roster. A satellite location in Baldwin Park was also opened in the 1930s.
Russell added 2,500 extra square feet of service area soon after getting settled in on San Bernardino Road. By the mid-1950s, the R. W. Ford franchise was the Valley’s largest volume Ford dealership and was now known as Russ Davis Ford.
The archetypal, deep-rooted battle was already being fought between the two blockbuster brands of Ford and Chevy long before the muscle era amped up the energy. Adherents of either brand could become rabidly intense about brand loyalty. The small-town atmosphere of Covina fostered civil and positive relations between Russ Davis Ford and Clippinger Chevrolet, but there is no question that the muscle car era prompted a bit of an extra spur. The sales race resulted in better inventory and bolder moves from both sides of the street.
Russell Davis had pointed out the technical and high-performance features of his Ford models as far back as the 1930s with the Ford V-8. In the 1950s, as Ford gradually backed away from the Thunderbird two-seat concept and went to the “personal car” version, Chevy pounded racecourses with Corvettes. In the later 1950s, this disparity between the Chevy and Ford performance scene set up Clippinger with an edge over Russ Davis.
Today, Clippinger’s empty lot contains only its futuristic 1960s lights. The style reminds me of the version of the future shown in the The Jetsons cartoon from the early 1960s.
Clippinger performance salesman Harry Edison (left) stands with his Camaro and a long line of Camaros he intends to sell. Bob Wingate (right) leans on his personal Corvette. Note that not just Bob’s Corvette but also those behind