[428ho4spd]

Looking for anything from "Pontiac City" dealership in Spokane Washington.

Thanks!

[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by 428ho4spd

Looking for anything from "Pontiac City" dealership in Spokane Washington.

Thanks!

You won't find much if anything. My 71 TA was from Pontiac City in Spokane. I put an ad on the Spokane CL and ending up talking to an older Pontiac gentleman from out there. As he explained to me, "Pontiac City" was a generic dealership name that Pontiac used for stores that were corporate owned. These stores may have been between private ownership during that period but GM wanted to keep them running so took them over until they could find another private owner. Since they were corporate owned, they did not run all of the promotional stuff and have all of the trinkets that privately owned dealerships had.

In the case of this one in Spokane, it was privately owned prior to 1971 by a person who was a pretty well know and popular figure around Spokane (don't remember his name). I searched around and did find his obituary as he passed in the last 10 years or so. The dealership was again privately owned after the early 70s. I can't remember if it is still there or not.

Interestingly, my 68 bird was sold new at Pontiac City in Passaic, NJ. I do have an original leather key fob that the original keys are on for that car.

The other branches of GM had different generic names for their corporate stores.

[geeteeohguy]

My 1965 GTO was a performance optioned car and was sold in June of 1965 at Utter Motor Company of Spokane. Utter was a big Pontiac dealership at that time. They are an iInfinity/Cadillac? dealer now. A couple of years ago, I tracked down the ex wife of the owner, who graciously put me in touch with someone who managed the place in the mid '60's, and he emailed me that Utter Motors donated a Pontiac GTO to the local college each year and sponsored drag races to raise money for education. Pretty neat. I was unable to find salesman (they did not remember him) or the original owner of my car (That part is blank on my Protect-o-plate), but it was interesting, nonetheless. Spokane wasn't that big back then, and Utter Motor company was a major player. Could possibly be the one you are looking for. As a side note, I was impressed and surprised at how nice and helpful the ex-owners/employees were in helping a stranger try to track down a car purchased 45 years prior!

[428ho4spd]

Originally Posted by 68bird400HO

You won't find much if anything. My 71 TA was from Pontiac City in Spokane. I put an ad on the Spokane CL and ending up talking to an older Pontiac gentleman from out there. As he explained to me, "Pontiac City" was a generic dealership name that Pontiac used for stores that were corporate owned. These stores may have been between private ownership during that period but GM wanted to keep them running so took them over until they could find another private owner. Since they were corporate owned, they did not run all of the promotional stuff and have all of the trinkets that privately owned dealerships had.

In the case of this one in Spokane, it was privately owned prior to 1971 by a person who was a pretty well know and popular figure around Spokane (don't remember his name). I searched around and did find his obituary as he passed in the last 10 years or so. The dealership was again privately owned after the early 70s. I can't remember if it is still there or not.

Interestingly, my 68 bird was sold new at Pontiac City in Passaic, NJ. I do have an original leather key fob that the original keys are on for that car.

The other branches of GM had different generic names for their corporate stores.

Thank you for that information, very interesting! I'm sure there were several other "Pontiac City" dealerships for short periods of time if that's the case. Funny, I did the same thing placing an ad on the Spokane CL for license plate frames a few years back with no luck. Another PY member here told me before that it use to be the "Utter" dealership.

[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by 428ho4spd

Thank you for that information, very interesting! I'm sure there were several other "Pontiac City" dealerships for short periods of time if that's the case. Funny, I did the same thing placing an ad on the Spokane CL for license plate frames a few years back with no luck. Another PY member here told me before that it use to be the "Utter" dealership.

I've got some notes at home from my conversations a few years ago. IIRC, it was the Utter Dealership before and after being Pontiac City. It was Pontiac City for only like a year or two. There was one other owner/name in there too before it became Utter again. I have to dig around to see what I can find.

[68bird400HO]

OK, found my notes. Pontiac City was Utter Pontiac/Cadillac from the '40s until 1969. In 1969 they went to being just a Cadillac dealer and remained so until 1993. So, the Pontiac store (I don't know if they built a separate, new building or what) was a corporate store from 1970 to around early 1972 when the McCallum family bought it. I don't know how long they owned it.

[428ho4spd]

Thanks again for sharing that information. So "Pontiac City" would likely have had a different address than the Utter Pontiac/Cadillac dealership. According to my build sheet, the address shown for Pontiac City Inc is... 1125 W Second Ave, Spokane Wash 99204. Doing some research online shows this to be true, Utter Motor Co. was located at 1219 W Second Ave.

[68bird400HO]

I found a few more notes. In my first post I mentioned that it was owned by a well-known person in Spokane. His name was Clay Sellers Bleck. Here is a link to his obit.

http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/pro...rgetid=profile

I can't remember how he fits into the picture now. He may have been the one who bought it from GM to make it a private store again and then selling it shortly thereafter to the McCallum family. My note says something about him having it for 1 year only. His son is a lawyer in the Spokane area now as I understand.

[428ho4spd]

Thanks for sharing that! The original Pontiac dealer there definitely went through several changes in a short period of time.