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Expert
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Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | So, in my state of dispair of watching the Oilers loose the hockey game last night, and drinking a whole bottle of wine, I decided to get out a large garbage bag of Edmonton Journal newspapers I've had for a few years. They came from a swap meet, and I got the whole bag for $5.  They are all from 1957 and 58. So, I started looking through for car ads. WoW! Lots of neat stuff! Wish I could go to a car dealer and buy a nearly new '57 for a couple grand!
Also, interesting how weddings were public news in those days... you could get married, and it would be on the front page of the society section, with story and pictures! 
I've only begun to find things. Here is a neat ad:
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7206
 
Location: Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island, Canada | Cool. My parents wedding in 1947 was covered in the local papers like you say, with a small article, even telling where they would be travelling on the honeymoon. |
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Expert
Posts: 1737
Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | People were really nosy in those days! You couldn't hide anything! Now, we just post everything on Facebook voluntarily, or tweet it to the world!! Weird. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 416
Location: North Central Alberta Canada | I wonder,
There used to a Mills Motors out in Niton Juntion west of Edmonton. It's a ESSO but back in
the day they were a full service station with mechanics and parts department for vehicles
and implements.
I stop for fuel there once in a while and see the old boy with a walker still running the place with his wife.
The bays out back are now car wash bays and the front is a food store.
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Expert
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Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | Anyone know what Mills Motors sold before they switched to The Forward Look? |
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Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | I've continued looking through the papers- here's a few more ads... Burrows Motors seems to be the largest Dodge DeSoto dealer, at least when it comes to advertising... 
Edited by miquelonbrad 2011-04-10 1:58 PM
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Expert
Posts: 2289
Location: Eastern Iowa | What are you finding in the "used car" classified section??
Any good deals there??!!
Dave S.
Edited by finsruskw 2011-04-10 6:45 PM
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Expert
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Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | Lots of deals!! Wish I really could go and buy the cars advertised!! How about a '55 Plymouth Wagon, with Automatic and sport tone trim for $1895.00, or a '56 Chrysler Windsor for $3095.00. Also, I spotted an interesting ad from Monday, November 25, 1957... kinda puts things in perspective... selling a 1923 McLaughlin Buick, in restorable condition. Phone Ken 880877. It doesn't list an asking price... |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 782
Location: Edmonton, Alberta | Wow..... that old Turnbull ad is cool! My folks bought 3 vehicles over the years there when I was a young'n. That Mills motors ad is interesting. I wonder if they became Miller motors later on. I kind of remember their dealership nameplate stuck to the odd Valiant or 2. |
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Posts: 1737
Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | I found a previous ad, in an earlier newspaper... they sold Studebaker before they switched to Chrysler. No wonder they switched!! :p |
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Location: Vancouver, BC | miquelonbrad - 2011-04-13 5:10 PM
I found a previous ad, in an earlier newspaper... they sold Studebaker before they switched to Chrysler. No wonder they switched!! :p
Mills and Miller were two separate firms. Miller, I believe, was a Plymouth-Chrysler-Fargo Truck dealer.
As to the switch to Chrysler from Studebaker, Mills may not have had much say in losing Studebaker. Back in the mid-1950's Ford in both Canada and the U.S. went on distributor raids. Car manufacturers in the first sixty years or so of auto history signed contracts with firms who would look after an area of the country. It was the job of the distributor to sign up dealers to sell the cars and trucks as well as maintain a parts warehouse to supply parts to the dealers. Cars and parts were ordered by the dealer through the distributor. The idea worked great until the distributor lost his contract, either by the manufacturer cancelling it or the distributor going with another firm. In both cases, the dealers had no cars to sell as their contracts were not with the manufacturers.
Which is how a fair number of former Packard dealers landed up selling Edsels. And in Winnipeg, the Studebaker-Packard distributor, Consolidated Motors, switched to Ford and became a Mercury-Lincoln-Meteor dealer. Thus Studebaker lost all their dealers in Manitoba and I think NW Ontario. Studebaker from that point could get only smaller firms in Manitoba for dealers - basically service stations that sold cars as a side line. Studebaker sales suffered as a result, with Eastern dealers always meeting or exceeding their sales goals and the Western dealers always falling flat.
Just dug out my files on the 1963 Studebaker as I had some photocopies of ads from Edmonton Journal micofilm records. Have two, actually, and it seems Mills Motors went back to Studebaker. Mills Motors Ltd. (10050- 108th Street) and Reeves Motors Limited (8504 - 109th Street) are shown as the Studebaker dealers in Edmonton. 85th and 109th was where Burrows Motors was. Wonder if it is the same building? The new Lark sold very well just at a time when Chrysler sales were suffering. Sales fell from 1957 through 1962, with an increase in 1960. So I can see Mills giving up Dodge-DeSoto for Studebaker in 1959 or 1960.
Chrysler of Canada disbanded their distributor network in the mid-1950's with the Winnipeg Dodge-DeSoto distributor's operations (Breen Motors) going to an-ex Studebaker dealer - Century Motors. One result of dropping distributors was Chrysler had to build regional warehouses - New Brunswick, Quebec, Alberta, Vancouver and Winnipeg.
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Expert
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Location: Hay Lakes, Alberta, Canada | Yes, and the regional warehouse here in Alberta was (is) in Red Deer.
They built a new warehouse a few years ago.
Interesting how dealers seemed to jump around. You don't see that happen anymore... |
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