Muskegon's Witt Buick celebrates 100 years of selling cars in the same spot

From Michigan Live:  Muskegon's Witt Buick celebrates 100 years of selling cars in the same spot

MUSKEGON, MI – When the Witt family set up their auto dealership in Muskegon, they rented horses and carriages out of the back of the garage.

The “horseless carriage” was a relatively new invention in 1912, but it apparently didn’t take Muskegon residents long to decide they liked it better than animal-powered transportation.

Witt Buick, 67 W. Western, celebrated its centennial Friday afternoon with a classic car show, a milestone that seemed out of reach three years ago. General Motors had slated Witt for closure in 2009, but the Witt family fought to keep their Buick affiliation.

Gary Scharlow said he has worked as a car salesman for 40 years, with 20 of those years at Witt. The customers’ loyalty struck him, he said.

“Probably the best return customers I’ve seen anywhere,” he said.

Scharlow estimated he had directed about 100 classic cars onto the Witt lot over the first two hours of the show. The current Buick inventory was moved to the other side of the building, he said.

Paul and Patricia Petermann of Silver Lake brought a five-passenger Buick Model 29 touring car to the show. It was from 1912, but wasn’t purchased at Witt -- although Witt co-owner Jan Witt had asked them to display it there from time to time.

They brought it on a trailer, Patricia Petermann said, because the car can’t get up to highway speeds.
“It likes 30 (mph),” Paul Petermann said. “It starts to make weird noises at 32.”

The lack of horsepower isn’t something to lament, he said, because it also doesn’t have modern brakes that allow it to stop quickly. In a way, it’s a window into the past.

“A trip into town was an all-day event,” he said.

George Mazurek of Cloverille, who volunteers at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, said it’s “almost unheard of” for a dealership to last so long.

“It’s amazing having a dealership in one family for 100 years,” he said.

Witt actually sold Hudsons before bringing Buicks to their lineup Mazurek said. Hudson merged with American Motors in 1958 and soon ceased production. But in the 1920s and 1930s they were favorites with both cops and gangsters. They could go one-quarter mile in 20 seconds, he said, which works out to about 45 mph.

“They were the fast car of the day,” he said. “Hudson was the car of choice because of their performance.”
Scharlow said the show was a “thank you” for Witt’s customers.

“We’ve got a lot of 89-year-old customers,” he said. “It’s fun for them because it brings back when their mom or dad drove one of these. Everybody’s got a story to tell.”