History Grand Spaulding Dodge... Today

Sad to see that. But just like "Some" of us things get old.

 

even for a Chevy guy that's sad.

 

Heres a few more shots of the showroom a few months ago. Having seen it many times during it's heyday it really is a sad sight to see.Like watching them tear down Riverview as I walked to & from school at Lane Tech.

 

Wasn't that the dealership that Kenny Safford used to drive for?

 

Gary Dyer

 

sad sight !

 

I could have lived the rest of my life having not seen that.

 

Yes kenny drove for him too. Lippy

 

I remember in summer of '69 I was on the road with Goeske's FC and when in Chicago we went to Grand Spaulding to buy some parts, belive it or not in those days we ran a bunch of over the counter stuff in a nitro FC.. anyway we were there and one of the shop mech was going to make a food run so I went with him , he had a '68 Charger with a race hemi that was his daily!! the thing was so radical that he would have to kick the TF into "N" at the lights to keep it from stalling. I remember it was real loud and real fast, and since I just turned 19 I loved every minute of it.
One of the things that made Norm so successful was he knew how to hire the right people, it was an amazing time that I will never forget. RIP, Grand-Spaulding Dodge, and may Mr. Norm live forever...

 

That sounds great. I'll have to check it out.

 

Used to go with my boyfriend to get parts for his Road Runner. What a blast that car was and he even trusted me to drive it!!
Fun fun fun....

Riverview huh? That was a lot of fun too. Loved the Bobs & Fireball (my poor dad). Not many folks I know remember the place. Glad I was gone before they tore it down.
Oh and my Uncle graduated from Lane too... Sorry for the blah, blah, blah, thanks for the memories

 

crazy! I just looked up Mr. Norm TODAY because Nummnut Bill was telling me about it and was driving me around like Miss Daisy in that area last week giving me the neighboorhood tour..

 

Yeah.5yrs old my Dad talked them into letting me on the parachutes,problem was I didn't want to get off.

 

WOW!!! I went by there and met Mr. Norm back in about 1992 or 1993 when he still had the 2 funny cars in the showroom (a blue "Charger" and an orange "Challenger" if I remember correctly?). The cars were in rough shape, but they were still there! The building was in MUCH better shape than it is now! Norm was across the street selling furniture and we met in his office to ask him if, just for fun, he'd be interested in having "an office" in the Mopar restoration shop that we were planning on opening "soon" in Bartlett, IL. He could do "appearances" and sign autographs, etc. a day or two a month, or when we had events at the shop, but... here's the shocker... He honestly had NO idea that "his" cars were being collected and restored to the level that they were!!! I still remember showing him a Mopar magazine that had an ad for "Dave's Totally Auto" on the back of it. The ad showed a 69'ish Dodge Charger unibody on a rotissierie getting blasted & prepped for paint. Norm's words were (and I quote) "I had no idea that these kids were doing this to these cars!!!" and he paged through the magazine with his jaw and eyes wide open. We had to explain to him that it wasn't "kids" doing this to his cars, but that it was the doctors, lawyers, and business owners that couldn't afford his cars back in the day that were doing this kind of thing to the old musclecars now.

We walked around through the empty dealership and service bays, and he showed us the room where the "dyno" used to be. Unfortunately there was nothing left to even suggest that the place had been a hotbed of Mopar activity back in the day. There was nothing but rooms full of bare white concrete block walls with dirty concrete floors. He said that he had some of the old invoices from the dealership in boxes "somewhere" but he didn't seem too motivated to find them.

It wasn't a year after we had been there that Norm kind of "came out of hiding" and started appearing at the Mopar Nationals and Chryslers at Carlisle, signing autographs and all that... If you see Norm, ask him if he remembers that conversation???

 

Oh yeah, forgot to add that some of the first ads that I ran in Mopar Collector's Guide magazine when I went to work for Mo-Par City in 1993 were sort of an homage to the old Mr. Norm's ads.... It had my head & smiling face at the top, with "over 800 parts cars IN STOCK" and all that jazz just like the real thing. If you put them side by side, you almost couldn't see the difference in the 2 ads. I got a LOT of compliments on that ad and people LOVED it! I'll have to dig one up and scan it...

 

Though I was but a wee lad when norm was in his heyday, it's still sad to see his old dealership in such disrepair. I grew up hearing my uncles talk about Grand Spaulding Dodge and all the great cars that came out of there. I lived in Chicago while attending the American Academy of Art from 88 thru 91 and was fortunate to have a buddy that knew where the dealership was located. He was kind enough to drive me by the place so I could at least say i saw it in person.

Yellowrr- I'd love to see shots of your ad!

 

ToddJ - Here's the ad! I suppose that it is true that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? If someone could tell me how to post the scan so that it is larger and more readable, I sure would appreciate it!!! It's a JPG and is already the biggest file size that it can be... ??? (Oh, just figured out that if you click on the thumbnail below, and then click on the new window / image that opens, it'll be a LOT bigger)

I remember seeing all of those Mr. Norm's ads in the pages of Hot Rod and Car Craft and wishing that my Dad would buy a new Hemi Charger or 440 Six Pak Challenger... But we lived in Pittsburgh (about 30 miles from Yenko Chevrolet, actually) and I had a brother and a sister, and a dog that used to go on Sunday rides with us, and we'd probably never have fit in the back of a Challenger.

 

Cool ads! Thanks for posting those! My cousin kept all of his old Hot Rod and Car Craft magazines fom the mid sixties thru the seventies so I'll have to see if he'll let me dig thru his collection!

 

You never know how much you miss something until it's gone...
Same thing with old Speed Shops and Drag Strips

F&M Automotive in Denver (Alan Bockla Top Fuel Dragster)
Bud Richter Automotive in Elgin IL (Gold Digger Funny Car)
Wise Speed Shop in St. Louis (Radici & Wise Funny Car)

 

The Mr. Norm's ad was from the April 1970 issue of Hot Rod if I remember correctly. The Mo-Par City ad was in Mopar Collector's Guide in about 1994 or 1995.

We got a lot of compliments on it because very few people ran the full length "column" ads like Norm did, and when people first saw our ad, they immediately thought that Norm was making a comeback or something.

Again, this is before he fully realized what "the kids" were doing to the cars that he sold back in the 60's & 70's!

 

Very sad, it's a great shame that so much of the America I loved as a kid has gone.

 

hey JOHN...man what a terable loss. SPAULDING had some of the fastest rods in the world! this just breaks my hart. thank god we have H.A.M.B. to keep tradition going on. and fellas i'am searous about this. THANK YOU RYAN ! hell this just might make me crack open my social security purse, and anti up the $ 50.00 member ship! HA! call me POP...or the old FART!

 

That second pic is really depressing.

Could be worse. Could be Detroit. It is heartbreaking to see the state of the great old auto plants in the Detroit area...Saddest is the giant Packard plant. That massive and historic place, abandoned since 1959, and literally, just a shell of its former self.

 

Man, I read this thread ....... and I keep going back to those photos, the "then and now" shots ...... really makes me sad. I remember listening to my radio as a kid with my headset on (I was supposed to be asleep) hearing those awesome radio ads on WLS, where every muscle car was "....dyno tuned and analyzsed" I see where Mr. Norm sold his ownership in 1977, and we know about the energy crisis/gas shortage that came along, but what the hell happened ?? To go from the #1 Dodge dealership to being all boarded up like a slum is so extreme! Any of you guys who live nearby, was it a long slow downturn or did the new owners drive it into the ground quickly?

Seeing those old print ads again was neat, thanks for posting.

Shoebox

 

Here are the photos that I took of Norm's funny cars when we visited him in 1993 to pitch our idea to him (see my previous post). It wasn't long after this however that the funny cars were removed from the old showroom. I can't remember much about the story, but I think that I remember Norm saying that his brother and he were debating about the future of the cars, and the brother (I think) said that he owned them and that Norm needed to "give them back"... But then I think that I heard that they were sold to someone, or donated to Garlits' museum in Ocala FL...??? Or...???

Wish that I could remember the story!!! Does anyone else know???

Thanks!

 

Been a while since we talked about this. Anyone know what happened to the old Mr. Norm's funny cars?

 

Oh man....the Mr. Norm's Charger FC is one of my favs....I think there was more than one? Or just "updated" with the '70 body??

 

John Logghe has the Charger.......

http://www.nitrogeezers.com/Logghe2.htm

http://www.70sfunnycars.com/where.html