Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
It's 1949 and you just got this in the mail. It's from a car dealer. They appreciate your business and want you to come back.
"Did-Ja-Know... We feel like a million dollars every time you bring your car to us for service? We try to show our appreciation in the work we do for you, but this card makes it official--Thank You Again!"
Imagine that. I get the distinct impression these days that NOBODY appreciates my business. Maybe it's the long hold times on the phone any time I call a business. Maybe it's the lightning speed with which they take my money... and the languid leisure with which they return it when a refund is in order.
We're looking at a bunch of postcards in this series, mailed out by the Pontiac automobile dealership Kramer-Eberts located in the south Detroit suburb of River Rouge, Michigan. Now if you know anything about southeastern Michigan, or auto history, you know that River Rouge is Ford country, the home of the giant Ford River Rouge Plant which was completed in 1928. Now Pontiac was a GM brand and very much a Ford competitor. Pontiacs were made about 40 miles north of Ford, in the city named, yes, Pontiac. So the Kramer-Eberts folks--a Pontiac dealer in Ford country--probably felt like the Dalai Lama at bible study.
I'm not sure what the "Good Luck" is about on the illustration here, or why the guy looks like he works at a soda fountain and would be, therefore, what we used to call a "soda jerk." But I guess those guys need cars too. And need good luck as well, just like the rest of us.
It's Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa tribe on the logo, the chief for which the town and the car were named. Pontiac was one of the earliest automobile towns, specializing in trucks and busses in a giant factory built by the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company in 1905. General Motors acquired Rapid in 1909, and proceeded to acquire other nearby truck-related businesses. In 1911 GM renamed their various truck enterprises as the General Motors Truck Company. In time that business became variously known as Truck and Bus, Truck and Coach, GMC, and to locals, simply, "the shop."
The Pontiac brand, on the other hand, came out of the Oakland Motor Car Company. That outfit was founded.. in Pontiac.., in 1907. Like the truck builder Rapid, Oakland too became a division of General Motors in 1909. The Pontiac-branded cars didn't appear until 1926. They were introduced as a new line of Oaklands that year, and by the early 1930s, they phased out the Oakland brand name in favor of the Pontiac brand. These ads show the 1929 models--at a time when both the Oakland and Pontiac brands were being made simulataneously. And here's Miss Pontiac showing a little leg, as they used to say. I dated her for awhile, until I bought my first foreign car, after which her father, General..Motors, insisted she have nothing further to do with me.
Here are Pontiac's offices in 1959. Other than the billboard off to the right, the building looked exactly the same for decades. And here's a 1949 view of the Pontiac factory, which is captioned in this photo "Fisher Body Plant -- Home of the Pontiac Auto, Pontiac, Michigan."
I grew up in this town, Pontiac, in the 1950s and '60s and I can tell you that nearly everyone's family was connected in one way or another with one or another of the "shops," most of which were a part of General Motors. Thirty miles to the south, in Detroit, were GM's corporate offices which you can see here in a 1950s photo.
It's hard to believe there were so many huge factories around the Pontiac area. It's a wonder there was room for them; from the air, the area is mostly water. I could easily walk to five different lakes from the house I grew up in.
Here's a picture I took in 2009 of Truck and Coach,.. or the ghost of it. A vacant lot. And Kramer-Eberts, the Pontiac dealership down in River Rouge--are they still there or did they turn into something else? Well, here's what it looks like now at their address on West Jefferson.
Check out all the episodes in this series. We'll be looking at several promotional cards sent out to customers back in the day, full of the style and goodwill that today just seems quaint.
It's 1949 and you just got this in the mail. It's from a car dealer. They appreciate your business and want you to come back.
"Did-Ja-Know... We feel like a million dollars every time you bring your car to us for service? We try to show our appreciation in the work we do for you, but this card makes it official--Thank You Again!"
Imagine that. I get the distinct impression these days that NOBODY appreciates my business. Maybe it's the long hold times on the phone any time I call a business. Maybe it's the lightning speed with which they take my money... and the languid leisure with which they return it when a refund is in order.
We're looking at a bunch of postcards in this series, mailed out by the Pontiac automobile dealership Kramer-Eberts located in the south Detroit suburb of River Rouge, Michigan. Now if you know anything about southeastern Michigan, or auto history, you know that River Rouge is Ford country, the home of the giant Ford River Rouge Plant which was completed in 1928. Now Pontiac was a GM brand and very much a Ford competitor. Pontiacs were made about 40 miles north of Ford, in the city named, yes, Pontiac. So the Kramer-Eberts folks--a Pontiac dealer in Ford country--probably felt like the Dalai Lama at bible study.
I'm not sure what the "Good Luck" is about on the illustration here, or why the guy looks like he works at a soda fountain and would be, therefore, what we used to call a "soda jerk." But I guess those guys need cars too. And need good luck as well, just like the rest of us.
It's Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa tribe on the logo, the chief for which the town and the car were named. Pontiac was one of the earliest automobile towns, specializing in trucks and busses in a giant factory built by the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company in 1905. General Motors acquired Rapid in 1909, and proceeded to acquire other nearby truck-related businesses. In 1911 GM renamed their various truck enterprises as the General Motors Truck Company. In time that business became variously known as Truck and Bus, Truck and Coach, GMC, and to locals, simply, "the shop."
The Pontiac brand, on the other hand, came out of the Oakland Motor Car Company. That outfit was founded.. in Pontiac.., in 1907. Like the truck builder Rapid, Oakland too became a division of General Motors in 1909. The Pontiac-branded cars didn't appear until 1926. They were introduced as a new line of Oaklands that year, and by the early 1930s, they phased out the Oakland brand name in favor of the Pontiac brand. These ads show the 1929 models--at a time when both the Oakland and Pontiac brands were being made simulataneously. And here's Miss Pontiac showing a little leg, as they used to say. I dated her for awhile, until I bought my first foreign car, after which her father, General..Motors, insisted she have nothing further to do with me.
Here are Pontiac's offices in 1959. Other than the billboard off to the right, the building looked exactly the same for decades. And here's a 1949 view of the Pontiac factory, which is captioned in this photo "Fisher Body Plant -- Home of the Pontiac Auto, Pontiac, Michigan."
I grew up in this town, Pontiac, in the 1950s and '60s and I can tell you that nearly everyone's family was connected in one way or another with one or another of the "shops," most of which were a part of General Motors. Thirty miles to the south, in Detroit, were GM's corporate offices which you can see here in a 1950s photo.
It's hard to believe there were so many huge factories around the Pontiac area. It's a wonder there was room for them; from the air, the area is mostly water. I could easily walk to five different lakes from the house I grew up in.
Here's a picture I took in 2009 of Truck and Coach,.. or the ghost of it. A vacant lot. And Kramer-Eberts, the Pontiac dealership down in River Rouge--are they still there or did they turn into something else? Well, here's what it looks like now at their address on West Jefferson.
Check out all the episodes in this series. We'll be looking at several promotional cards sent out to customers back in the day, full of the style and goodwill that today just seems quaint.
