History lesson:
Palmer’s Ford dealership began the day the Titanic sank

By Terry Jacoby
Heritage Newspapers

Palmer Motor Sales Inc. was established in 1910 in a barn located in the alley behind Park Street, just east of where the Purple Rose Theatre now sits.

Leigh G. Palmer (1882-1973) opened a two-car garage selling Regal automobiles. Palmer was the son of Dr. George W. Palmer and Ida (Collins) Palmer. A civil engineer, Palmer was instrumental in laying out some of the streets in the village of Chelsea and was an engineer for the Windsor Tunnel.

In 1911, the business moved to its present address at 222 S. Main St., with a sub-dealership obtained from Ford Motor Co. Palmer’s had the first gas pump in Chelsea in 1910.

In 1912, a Ford franchise was awarded to Palmer’s. The dealership officially opened on April 15, 1912 – the same day the Titanic went down.

This was an opportune time for Palmer to begin a dealership as Henry Ford introduced the 1908 Model T for $850. The Model T was dropped to $500 in 1913, $390 in 1915 and $260 in 1925, putting the automobile within reach of most average families.

Leigh Palmer started out with one employee, Earl Shanz, and sold about 100 cars a year in the early days as business thrived selling the Model T, which ran from 1910-1927.

In 1918, a two-story automotive shop was built on the rear of the building. Studebakers and Dodges were sold between 1915-17. Lincoln was added to the stock in 1920 and Mercury in 1938. Both models were sold by Palmer until 1942 when Palmer’s became exclusively a Ford operation.

George Palmer, who has always been in Chelsea and graduated from Chelsea High School in 1947, began as a janitor and changed tires for his dad in 1941 at the age of 13.

“The biggest job I had was to watch the shop while the only other employees, dad and Earl Schanz, went to lunch,” said George, who passed away in February 2008 at the age of 78. “We didn’t need a salesmen during World War II, there were no cars. On Dec. 8, 1941 everything was frozen. Anything being built by auto companies was sent to the Army.

“We went through the whole war with a brand new 1942 pick-up parked in the garage. During that time we did mostly repairs and sold a few cars.”

George only left Chelsea twice in his life – once to get a business degree from the University of Miami and the other time to serve in the Army during the Korean War.

George used to enjoy telling the story his dad used to tell them about pioneer car dealer Billy Hughson from San Francisco.

“Billy said in 1905 he borrowed $5,000 to come to Detroit and buy some Ford cars,” George said in an interview with the Chelsea Standard in 1997. “Henry Ford button-holed him and told him to buy stock in Ford Motor Co. with the money. Billy thought it was a good idea so he wired his banker. The banker said, ‘no, you come back with those cars, that Henry Ford, he’s too shaky.’”

George recalled the biggest impact on the auto industry introduced in 1927 and ran to1931.

“It was so vastly different, a real departure from the Model T, which had a planetary transmission. The Model A had the standard blocker transmission and balloon tires.”

In 1932, Ford introduced the V-8 engine, a powerful engine that had eight cylinders arranged in a V. George remembered a milestone in the all new 1949 Ford, completely revamped from stem to stern. The automatic transmission was made in 1951 and seatbelts were added later in the decade.

The showroom was built in 1948, uniting two previously separate structures and totally remodeled in 1985. George took over the management of the dealership in 1955 and became president in 1972. Following George’s takeover, an off-site used car sales location was added on M-52 South.

By 1982, Palmer’s employed 20 to 30 employees at any given time.

One notable past employee was Dwight E. Beach, later a General in the United States Army. In 1962, Beach wrote a letter to Leigh Palmer saying, “I was shocked to see in the attached picture that you are 83 years old. I had no idea you had reached an honorable age as I remember you as a young man when I was pumping gas at your Ford place in 1923-24. My pay was 17-1/2 cents an hour, which was big money in those days for Chelsea. I guess the world has changed.”

Many awards and certificates of recognition covered the shower room walls over the years. In 1982, Palmer Ford Motors was recognized with a resolution adopted jointly by the Michigan Senate and the House of Representatives marking the firm’s 70th anniversary as Michigan’s oldest Ford dealership under continuous ownership of the Palmer family.

On the drawing boards for Ford’s future, George Palmer explained, are all kinds of alternative fuel cars – natural gas, bottled gas and electric car.

Electric cars aren’t a new idea. George said he remembered going to the movies in Ann Arbor and seeing an older widow lady driving all over in an electric car that had a “tiller.”

In 1997, car and truck sales from their three lots in Chelsea totaled about 1,600 per year.

Continuing to be a family business, George and Donna Palmer’s daughter, Suzie, began working in 1972 at the service desk. Her husband, Biff Weber, started with the firm in 1986 when Suzie and Biff came back from California. Donna was at the main store full time in the 1980’s.

“The store has been my livelihood and my hobby,” George said in 1997.

He retired on Dec. 31, 1997 after working in the business for 54 years.

Suzie Palmer and Biff Weber said they learned a lot from George, who said he learned his trade from his father, making Palmer Ford a truly family operation.

“My father conducted the business the same way I do,” said George when he was running the store. “We treat people right and appreciate them as friends as well as customers.”

That philosophy lasted three generations.