A Long Story
This will be a rather long and boring story but what the heck, it is the day before my 60th birthday and I am reflecting on a very unique life involving Oldsmobile.
I was studying Automotive Technology at Ferris State College in Big Rapids, Michigan in the late 60's when my dad first asked me for a huge "adult" opinion, "What car should I buy?." I told him at the time I felt that Oldsmobile was the best value for the dollar. Little did I know that just a few years later I would go to work for them.
I was hired as a District Service Manager in Training in 1970 (at least I think the year is right) and moved from Grand Rapids where I was doing an intern assignment on my way to obtaining a teaching degree. About two days before I was due to report to work I got a call and was told "Sorry, there has been an economic cut-back and we will pay your moving expenses but you do not have a job." This was just before the GM strike and I took a job as a front-end mechanic at Starnaman Olds in Grand Ledge. I ended up doing the front end alignments on some of the first cars built in 1971 and will never forget the argument with my service manager that the specs given to me on the Toronado were wrong. The engineers told me basically to mind my own business as the car was all new and the specs were right. I signed the R.O. with a notation that I would not be held responsible for the alignment as I was sure I set the car to the wrong numbers. A week later the engineers came to me and apologized and said I was right and they brought the car back to be re-aligned. In fact they asked me if I would consider working at the engineering garage some day. I politely declined.
After the strike was settled I was called to work and my first day was memorable. I went to work in Bldg. 70 in Lansing outfitted will a new suit, tie, shirt, etc. When the door to the service department was opened for me the office became very silent. I looked out on the sea of people and felt very subconscious. There was a reason! I met my first supervisor, Ken Hill, and started doing transportation claims. A specialized clerk in the office came over to me at lunchtime and said "we don't do that here"...apparently my light beige shirt was supposed to be white. I enquired about this policy and found out there was no written policy and I was too young and stupid to play the game and I continued to wear pastel shirts. Within a week it seemed like the office turned into a rainbow.
Gosh, I worked for some great people in Lansing. Claire Oxendale was a larger that life head of our Service area. Dale Percival, Ed Kreutzinger, and Art Cotten were great to work with and I had many very cool experiences on different assignments in Lansing. The best was leading meetings at the engine plant showing graphs of warranty expense to the plant and reliability people. Dale was pretty pleased with my work and later on let this 22 year old kid conduct the meetings by himself.
I was finally sent out to a field assignment in Chicago as the youngest Olds rep in the country. I had a metro Chicago territory. My first boss was Ivan Stebbins who later became the General Service Manager at Olds. He was a GREAT boss. I loved the job and worked with a great group of talented people from Walt Simth, Bernie Balwin and George Roberts. A lot of great people on the sales side as well! In 1974, Olds and I parted ways and I went to work for Lennertz Oldsmobile in Merrillville, Indiana.
Lennertz was a dealer that I called upon as a district service manager and Jim offered me a job at about double what I was making at GM. I became the director of parts & service and enjoyed a lot of freedom as my "own boss". In 1976, I told Jim that I was getting burnt out and losing my enthusiasm for the job and told him he should start looking for a replacement. To my amazement he stated he was happy to hear my words as he wanted to make me the general manager! I was sent off to General Motors Institute (GMI) in Flint and took the "dealer's sons" course. Upon my return Jim Lennertz handed over his office to me and said go run the store! I learned an awful lot on the job and will be forever grateful for the opportunity Jim gave me.
To digress a bit, while a DSM in Chicago I called upon a little store in Beecher, Illinois. The parts manager Wendell "Ohlly" Ohlendorf invited me to his house to see his antique car collection. I was blown away. Love at first sight and I immediately began the search for an early Olds. Eventually I found a 1936 which I owned for a short time until the car ended up in the hands of others during my divorce. That story will not be told! However, Ohlly, and later in son Tim became my best friends and nurtured a love for early automotive history and especially my love for Oldsmobile's history. I also during this time became the 3rd or fourth President of the Oldsmobile Club of America (OCA).
Back to my dealership days. During this time I undertook my first full restoration of a rare Olds. It was a 1920 Olds Model 37 (six cylinder) which was one of two known to exist. This car became a fixture at a lot of national events and won may awards. It currently is owned by GM and is the car on the Pennsylvania antique car plate.
In 1985, my boss decided to sell the store and I rushed to find a backer to help me buy the store. We did so which also included a Honda franchise. During this time I became very active in the dealer group advertising associations and our dealership was very fortunate to win numerous service and sales awards. We were an Elite dealer and got to take some very fantastic trips with Oldsmobile and heard speakers like General Schwarzkopf , Lou Holtz, etc. We went to fantastic resorts and even had a trip to Hawaii, along with a lot of dealers I greatly respected. I also was selected to serve on our National Dealer Council, then to our Oldsmobile Board of Governance and was the Olds rep to the GM Dealer Policy Board. I served on too many committees to remember but they were all interesting, fun and frustrating as well.
In the early 90s I got a call from Mike* (oops, forgot his last name... sorry Mike) the General Manager of Oldsmobile. I can picture his face but can't pull up the name. He informed me that GM's 1911 Olds Limited was heavily damaged at Busch Gardens and requested my advice on what to do. The Ohlendorfs and I went up to inspect the car at the old Porter Street building and realized that the only avenue now opened was to restore the car fully. I was given the authority to oversee the restoration and gave the work out to my friends as they were world known brass car experts. We began the beautiful restoration of the car which many of you know as "Mighty Whitey." The car put me at odds with my good friend Helen Earley as she did not like the paint combination but she later mellowed and accepted it. The car won AACA National Awards and won at Meadowbrook as well. It has been a huge crowd favorite over the years. I got to take it around to these events including Pebble Beach for display and it was an honor just to be associated with this behemoth. The interesting part of this was we needed tires real bad for the car and I found them in a location in the Exhibit & Display building right were they had been left in the 70's! I had visited that area and happened to examine the tires when I worked in Lansing!
John Rock came along during the restoration of the Limited and he immediately let me know he was a fan of history and believed that Olds should be proud of their heritage while trying to forge a new market. I was also on his new Board of Governance and it kept up in monthly if not weekly contact. I found John to be spell binding and enjoyed listening to his take on all things automotive. His concepts that led many of us to go through Saturn Outside Services Training was life changing for me. John was a true hero to me.
I brought along thousands of photos of Oldsmobiles for John to look at and very quickly he started to say "we need one of these and one of these" and no sooner then said I was crossing the country as a volunteer buying vehicles for Oldsmobile. It was very exciting and in the Heritage Collection now are many cars that I arranged to be acquired.
John also asked me about getting a replica of the Olds Pirate built, which I also helped to make happen. Again, Ohlendorfs were given the assignment and a 3/4 scale replica was built since we did not have access to a 2 cylinder engine and the cost to build one was more than the budget could stand. During the process I called John to ask him to come to the Chicago area to be fitted for driving the car and he responded that they should fit the car to me! Of course he used much more colorful language! I had so many incredible experiences with the Pirate including filming for CBS TV during our 100th. Getting to meet so many race car drivers at a special program in Ormond Beach, Florida will be a thrill I will never recover from. Keith Kapanka from Olds, along with Gus Buenz, our new GM, Darwin Clark had an awesome experience.
Also, this was a time during which we celebrated our 100th anniversary and I was a part of that committee. I got to do a lot of cool things including being asked to represent Olds on the Today Show in New York. We took two truck loads of cars to NY and unloaded them in front of the studio. I was interviewed by Willard Scott and still am amazed that Oldsmobile asked me to do this as I did not work for them but just was a loyal dealer.
Finally, Oldsmobile selected an engineer by the name of Dick Balsley to handle their special vehicles including the antique collection which now had grown nicely since Rock's requests. I was pretty upset at the time that they did not give this job to an antique car nut but to "some engineer" but boy did I turn out to read this hiring wrong. Dick did an amazing job with growing and preserving the collection and now does the same for all of GM's historic vehicles. I know of no single person who has done more for GM's heritage than Dick. I hope somehow that future generations will be able to appreciate his contribution to America and GM's history.
I told you this was going to be long but I am about to wrap it up. In 2003, I closed our 70 year old single point Olds dealership. Not much to say, but the announcement made to discontinue Olds was personally devastating to me. I was one of the 64 exclusive Olds dealers as I had parted company with my financial investor and he got the Honda store and I kept Olds. It is a long chapter in my life that was full of tears for my employees, my friends, my customers and I. At this time I also sold my rare 1908 award winning Olds Model X, which I still feel is one of GM's most important historic cars. I could go on about what I think went wrong and what I think about the decision but it would be to no end. The decision was made and this proud make has become another footnote in the automotive world, although one many of us will never let people forget.
Interesting how things happen as I was looking for my next "job" when the job as the Executive Director of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) became open. I had been involved in many restorations over the years and had a small collection of rare early Oldsmobiles and my own "little museum" to Olds but the hobby was still very important to me. I got the job and moved to Hershey, Pennsylvania. The last four years has kept me in touch with GM as we have collaborated with several functions. GM has been a great supporter of our 61,000 member club. It feels to me that all my experiences surrounding Olds really prepped me for this job.
The other interesting aspect is that former Olds GM, Darwin Clark is now the President of our beautiful multi-million dollar Antique Auto Museum at Hershey and Darwin and I get to work with each other all over again. We have grown in our mutual respect and he is doing a great job in volunteering to lead our museum to being best-in-class.
Well, there you have it. A bit long, but actually a bit brief for almost 40 years of being an Olds enthusiast. Several years ago I had pins made up that really say it all and will be how I leave you - Oldsmobile Forever.
*J. Michael Losh was Oldsmobile General Manager from June, 1989 until April, 1992.
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