“I’ve seen things, you people wouldn’t believe, hmmm … attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.”
These words were uttered by Rutger Hauer in the film Blade Runner, and I don’t doubt that his about-to-die character had seen some shit. However, I don’t think he’d ever seen someone put a fire pit in a car dealership.
Oh sure, I know that many dealers today put some wimpy glass-fronted rectangle into a wall with semi-realistic flames, like below. But that’s just going through the motions for the great god Prometheus.
The people at Fireside Chrysler Plymouth went all out, giving customers a Mad Men-style sunken mid-century style box with real live flames behind a thin, openable screen for the kids to throw things into while you try to cut a deal on that red Plymouth Duster there. With the carpeting and drapery, it looks like the intent was to make this place on Dealer Row in Schaumburg, Illinois feel like the inside of the Playboy Club. A new store occupies the space now (Patrick Hyundai, for all my Chi-Town homies), and you don’t even need to ask if the fireplace is still there and surrounded by Ioniq 5s.
These all appear to be 1972 cars, and if you’re afraid of that fireplace burning the place down, I’d be more concerned about that mint green little sedan right next to the pit. That, my friends, is an infamous Plymouth Cricket, a British-built Hillman Avenger imported so that Mopar dealers would have something, anything, to pitch against Volkswagens.
The Cricket was all that you would expect from something produced in strike-riddled early seventies England: a total disaster. The workmanship was reportedly poor, which likely exacerbated the built-in issues with driveability due to early emissions controls and electrical maladies. Chrysler started bringing in “captive import” Mitsubishis (badged as “Colts”) during this time, and you can guess who was going to win that race. The last Crickets were sold in 1973 after a mere three-year run.
The whole idea of presenting a car in a sort of museum setting to create a mood always intrigued me. You might remember that in addition to doing some scribbles of a what-if line of late eighties AMCs a while back, I also played with what the dealership might look like. I really wanted to play up the idea of separate AMC car and Jeep areas, with the Jeep section featuring a little pond, trees and rustic flooring. Why not bring a little bit of the auto show to the showroom?
Sadly, with the rise of touch-free online sellers since the time of COVID, the whole dealership experience is changing and even disappearing today. If you’re going to do any haggling on a car in the near future, it’s likely the only fire you’ll be sitting next to is the one in your living room.
Before they moved across town a nearby dealership hadn’t been updated inside since 1980. It was amazing and I loved walking by it just to appreciate the architecture. They had mirrors on the ceiling above the display cars, glass blocks separating the cubicles, a carpeted guide path in the linoleum floor, and a gravel garden with spotlights buried in it that lit up the wall behind it in a soft glow. It was so wild seeing a BN generation Mazda3 and fourth gen Honda CR-V in that time capsule surrounded by all the modern advertising print hung up on the walls. The grey desaturated posters for all the Hondas being in the warm colours of the environment created a really depressing contrast.
Funnily enough the outside looked brand new, painted all blue and white. I guess because the place sold three brands the dealership rules for styling only applied to the signage.
EDIT: Might I also add that I miss houses having the colloquially called “fuck pits” in architecture. So called because of their prevalence during the golden age of a certain adult industry… Having a recessed lounge area is so nice if the house still has one. I get so disappointed when a house has the recessed lounge removed and the floor filled in after a remodel.
Meanwhile, in the automobile dystopia of Argentina.
The infamous Hillman Avenger becomes a Volkswagen model
(when Chrysler closes operations and leaves the country in 1979)
Resulting in the obsolete “Volkswagen 1500” (manufactured between 1980 to 1990)
And it carried on in Iran in ute form all the way to 2015 (though they dropped the sedan in 2005)
Or the burning Tesla in your hopefully detached garage!
The Plymouth Cricket was very quiet. You couldn’t even hear the tires chirp.
I once had a co-worker dropping off his car at a Subaru dealer and I went to pick him up. I stepped inside to look around while he got signed in. They had a super friendly dog wandering about greeting and entertaining people in the waiting area. It just seemed so on brand for Subaru.
The Jaguar dealership I worked at in Sandy Eggo had chandeliers – expensive ones too…..oh, and the service dept was in a separate building – to keep the screaming pissed off owners away from the potential new owners I guess……
Nothing takes the edge off a Cold Start without Jason like a Fireside chat with The Bishop.
Glad to hear it! This week I’m trying to do the great man proud with these morning openers. Hope you like them!
Thanks for giving us a touch of the weird, wacky and nostalgic. It is great to look at stuff like this and simultaneously get a fuzzy memory, a modern sensibility WTF, and a longing for a bit more color in the world.
Back when I had a job that had me spending a ton of time in dealerships, one of my clients was a Land Rover dealer at the tail end of that time period where all their showrooms looked like fancy lodges, when there was still the illusion one might get driven somewhere as adventurous as a dirt road (they also had the long-unused test course out on the back of the lot). There were also a handful of dealers who held on to some vestige of their amazing mid-century facilities, but I think at this point everything is long converted to a corporate-mandated shiny neutral coloured box.
I particularly liked the stone angled ramp they put outside the showrooms. I thought that was a regular thing and not just isolated to the one near me (Knauz auto park)
It looks like it was common enough to have been at more than one location at least. All the Toronto area dealers just seem to have assorted rock formations less than a meter high to park display vehicles on.
https://www.roverparts.com/roverlog-news-blog/remembering-the-land-rover-centre/
I love that look, I had a very similar fireplace in the house I just sold, used it all the time. There was a version of modern design at the time that mixed an inviting warmth with contemporary style, which I think is missing much of the time today, people now seem to think modern has to equal something as cold and clinical as a Model 3 interior
Ah, but this is just classic 1970’s decor. The red carpet, the red drapes, the white leather (or maybe velour) seating. And just look at that wine bottle chandelier in the background! I’m just surprised there isn’t an empty Chianti fiasco bottle with a candle stuck in the top sitting on the table.
That candle bottle in the lounge I bet, where you go for a drink and maybe a smoke after the sale is written up. Lots o dark wood paneling.
And that room would be done up in the “matador” theme, complete with a pedestal in the corner with a bronze bull and crossed swords on the wall so John Q. Milquetoast could fantasize about challenging the finance manager to a duel over the ruinous double-digit loan APR.
Oh yeah. Or a coat of arms with shield and maybe a helmet on the wall. B/c classy ’70s vampire movie mansion.
Kunkleman Chevrolet tried this with a 55 gallon can and some waste oil
(for my RCR homies)
Some incongruous imagery this morning, indeed: a fire pit inside a car dealership and what looks to be a tent pitched *in* the water in the background of that photograph of the Crickets parked by the stream with the scout troops.
Ooh, imagine all the dramatic throwing of contracts into the fire! “Here’s what I think of your loan terms!”
In the true spirit of last century: Just burn some stuff
I remember Schmerler Ford’s hilarious commercials for used cars- a monstrous, white Ford LTD spinning on a turntable with disco lights blinking on it as the voiceover describes the features, always ending with “WITH AIR!!!”
Also, what ever happened to the Long Chevrolet newspaper boy?
A cricket on the hearth has been considered good luck in many cultures for thousands of years. Makes sense to park a Cricket by the fire pit.
Cricket: Fire Pit, Money Pit, what’s the difference?
This reminds me that some 747s used to have a cocktail lounge upstairs on the second level, in lieu of seats. Just like this, the pictures are glorious.
Would have been better with a fireplace, don’t ya think??
Esp. if it were advertised as “jet fueled” (even though I’m sure not, but still that sounds about what they’d have done)!
I’m old enough to have been around when the lounge was still a thing in the planes, but never got to see one as I would have been too young; I did however get to sit in the upstairs compartment (later on, once they were all changed to seating) a few times, and totally did try to envision a bar and chairs/tables instead of craptastic airline seats.
We flew a 747 when I was 5 (in the early 80’s)? I recall either sitting upstairs or going up there to see what it was like. I do NOT remember a fireplace though 🙂
I’m just a little older than you, but I never flew anywhere long enough away on a 747 until I was an adult.
When I did sit upstairs, I did enjoy the less-chaotic feel of it all compared to the main cabin.
I worked for a business jet manufacturer, and I got ahold of a trade magazine about aircraft completions.
Completions is where you take the mechanically complete aircraft and outfit it for the customer. Paint, interior, etc.
The article was about some of the most outrageous requests for completions. Remember, these are private jets, so the customers have DEEEEEEP pockets.
One guy wanted a working, wood burning fireplace in his biz jet. Not simulated or gas logs. Wood. Open flame. In a plane.
The designers got to work trying figure out how to do this safely. After a couple weeks of work, they figured it out and presented it to the customer.
He said “Never mind. Takes up too much space.”
Not because it was a completely outrageous extravagance. Not the ridiculous cost. Not the safety hazard of HAVING AN OPEN FLAME IN AN AIRCRAFT.
It took up too much space.
I would love to see this design review.
“Welcome to the design review of the stupidest thing we’ve ever done, and likely ever will do. Elaine, you wanna go first?”
Damn, even the Queen opted for an electric fireplace on her yacht in the ’50s when it was explained to her that Royal Navy safety regulations would normally require a sailor with a bucket of water to keep watch next to any open flame, and I’d say HMY Britannia was a much safer place for that sort of thing than a freaking jet.
They used to have smoking sections too.
I think it was Eastern airlines. You had to be in first class to use the lounge. My girlfriend and I were on a flight and they were trying to accommodate a large group and we somehow got upgraded to FC as they juggled seats. As soon as the seatbelt sign went out we were upstairs pounding back everything we could get our hands on!
Funny how cars keep getting more and more ‘luxury’ crap piled on while air travel gets more stripped down and rudimentary all the time.
That’s a fascinating observation. And further, how we all complain about air travel, but rarely say that our cars are too luxurious.
Interesting how in the old days, air travel was way more civilized and luxury in most cars meant things like standard a/c. Obviously, part of it was due to market restrictions in both (regulation and low foreign competition, respectively), but I always wonder about if there is a sweet spot and if so, where it is?
I wish there were a movement to bring conversation pits back to the world. Fireplace or no fireplace. We should have conversation pits.
Actually, I think they are starting to come back in within the past few years. It’s actually being driven by the “open concept all the things” movement HGTV started, since it’s a way to have clearly defined areas within a room, while still avoiding walls.
and indoor koi ponds!
Has there ever been a car called “Avenger” that wasn’t crap? Does that make Hulk angry?
The first-gen ’90s Dodge in coupe form was at least fairly fetching to look at, but yeah.
And making it worse: I’ve never understood exactly what are they’re supposed to be avenging anyway. With a name like that, shouldn’t they at least be a much better car after a bad one?
Its like the Plymouth Fury. WTF were they so mad about?
Probably the Cricket
At least the Fury could be had in some fairly angry-looking guises over the years. A car like the Ford Aspire was seemingly doomed from the beginning.
Why would they even name a car that? Is it aspiring to be a better car? Who knows.
On the other hand, the Aspire debuted in the 90s during the peak era of motivational posters and related yuppie-corporate B.S. — so somebody in the marketing office probably just threw a dart at the wall to see which motivational poster it hit, and bingo! There’s the car’s name.
In fairness, it had a chance. Just imagine the press if Ford had taken it seriously and produced something like an amazing, North American Fiesta-equivalent with it at that time…”the Ford Aspire does more than that, it achieves (take that GM!)”
And then they could trade marketing blows with GM’s Oldsmobile Achieva…
A car I really liked BTW. Great lines (esp. for the time), a very cool interior, and could be had in a hotted-up SCX trim.
I really miss early-90s GM. They built cars that were genuinely likeable.
And unique within reason to boot.
I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time, but Chevys (I owned a Beretta then) then were largely each their own thing styling-wise, vs today’s “it’s all Camaro all the time GRRR!!” mojo.
I always thought they named it “Ass-pyre” because being burned to a crisp was the likely outcome of a collision with anything larger than a riding mower.