Dealer practices from the 70's
 

I was at a cruise night and saw a bone stock '78 Bonney. Had Dealer invoice on the window. I sorta chuckled as I recalled actually applying many cars with "Quaker Koat" . This was on TOP of any last step assembly line black undercoating in wheel wells you often see. It came in 35 Gallon Quaker State Barrels with a air syphon system on top. It was carmel colored and did not completely harden. It was very popular with those not going directly over to get an underbody oil bath which was cheaper, but dripped for days.
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...1&d=1408048663http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...2&d=1408048680

Whatever happened to Zeibart and good old Rusty Jones?
Remember "Hello Rusty Jones,goodbye rusty cars"

I had put on MANY coats of Rusty Jones at the local Buick dealership in the late 70's early 80's LOL.

I bought a new car in 1980 with Rusty Jones rustproofing...it didn't work, even though I only drove the car in the summer it rusted out anyway. :)

Care to share what make/model?

Another dealer practice: 21.9% interest on the note! I pulled the original paperwork out of a special edition turbo Trans Am years ago and was in sticker shock at the guy who paid almost $12k for the car plus 21.9% interest, $300/mo back in 1979!

Well, back in '79 - 80, that was when home mortgage rates were bouncing around 12 - 17%. Car loans were always several points higher than a home loan. There was no such thing as 0% financing on a new car back then...

I would think that person with the 21.9% rate probably had poor credit though. I got my first new car loan back in May of 1977 and the rate was 12%. Paid $3250 (plus tax, title and plates) for the car and financed $2000.00. Making a substantial down payment probably helped my interest rate.

It was a Mazda 626. It was a great little car, but it turned out they were very prone to rusting so there was only so much the Rusty Jones treatment could do. :)

Big time upcharge undercoating wasn't a sell in the Southern Plains & N Texas. Running across cars with the Ziebart plugs, we knew they were from the rustbelt.... & I know of a bunch of dealers & individuals that wouldn't buy 'em as used cars. In the late '70's, I cleaned up a ton of '76, 77, 78, 79 model repo'ed GM cars. Also drove many many dozens as repo's going back to GM dealers... Cadillacs, Corvettes, Z28's, TransAms, '77 Regals, 280Z's, even Peugots & BMW's. More than anything '77 Monte Carlos & Cutlasses. The Oil Patch crowd loved the '76 & 77 Monte's. After the fall of '82, GMAC cracked down on employee's kids driving repo cars, esp long distances. It seemed some employees were putting their college age kids out on the road, then flying them home from multiple states away.

As a young teen, can remember dealer add on vinyl tops in the early '70's, they often used a one piece plastic molding instead of the factory stainless & potmetal pieces. Later in the '70's, nearly all Chevy & Pontiac-GMC dealerships I drove into, had displays in the corner of the showroom floor or back in the hall leading to the parts dept displaying aftermarket stereos, often an affordable line from Audiovox or Sanyo. Never anything of quality like the Concord unit I ordered & installed in my '80 T/A. Clicking off a radio accommodation package was common place, my familys '78 Silverado & nearly all of our last Pontiacs were ordered that way. Carpeted factory floormats began to take off in the early 80's & several dealers I can remember sold a lot of carpeted mats over the parts counter. Anything to make a little money.

Another money maker was vinyl pin striping. Any dealership with a razor blade and a $9 roll of vinyl could do 2 $75 striping jobs in a half hour.

The most adventurous dealer added striping job I ran across were on several '79 T/A's, all out of Joe Pistocco Pontiac in Wichita Falls, TX. Someone at their dealership was applying SE style striping on non SE's. Remember seeing several nocturne blue & heritage (?) brown '79 T/A's with factory look gold stripes. Not narrow easy to curve narrow stripes either. On original stripes, the thicker stripe is too wide to easily curve. I just can't figure how the dealership did that w/o at least using original SE die cut stripes for the wheel openings, spoilers, & mirrors.

That Truecoat though...I'm just sayin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gwc4UizUc

lol..that caramel colored rustproofing used in the early 80s had a unique smell to it that i have only seen replicated in some rust preventative aerosol. love that smell! also in the early 80s, if you got a g body rustproofed, they put rubber plugs in the rear frame holes by the gas tank to stop the rot--i have seen a few so equipped. when i was a porter 22 years ago, i used to spray a $5 can of scotchguard on the car seats and use that "paint pruf" wax. im sure the charge to the customer was a couple hundred dollars--alll that work was done by a 21 yr old porter making $5.50 an hour.......

Pin stripes, and those rivet on body side moldings.

I worked at a Dealer in the late 70's and we used to wash the cars with kerosine to remove the over-spray of the undercoating of new cars and clean a car in for service after the work was done. The cars would shine like a fresh wax job even after a soapy wash and rinse.

We never gave a thought to the kerosine run off going down the drain into the city sewer.



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I use to work as a porter back in the early 70's to. I had to wash the cars down with kerosene and lot's of hot water, and your right, no thought to the run off, and my hands were raw.

Early on I worked at a place that sold "accessories" to dealerships. I worked lower Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. If a dealership could add it to a vehicle for a little extra profit, we sold it to them. Quart bottle undercoat. Paint sealant. Step bumpers. Bedliners. Pin stripe. Body side molding, both stick on and rivet on. Floor mats. Ventvisors. Truck bedrails and running boards. Trailer hitches. Etc, etc, etc......
We had dealerships that bought (and sold) $10's of thousands of dollars worth of our stuff monthly. While some of that business still exists today, most of it has dried up due to the economy and liability issues.

Dealer add-ons..........the stupid fake convertible tops that prgeeople put on cars, especially Caddies, with the stupid metal snaps like used for a convert top boot. Non-functional parts, serving no purpose whatsoever.

George

You have to remeber back them when the interest rate was 21.9%, the banks actually paid 10-11% interest on your savings account CD's.

I knew an old car dealer (now deceased) who had been out of the business since at least the 70's. He had a lot of stories about rolling back odometers, etc. My favorite one was that he claimed to buy heater-delete cars from Florida, and bring them up to Massachusetts to sell in the summer. Of course; when winter rolled around he'd have plenty of business installing heaters.