Wednesday, May 12, 2021

THE EVOLUTION OF VW DEALERSHIPS IN THE DAYTON, OH AREA, 1953-2018

WORK BY ED!!!! THANK YOU -- 

A couple of years ago I spent considerable time sorting out the history of Volkswagen marketing via franchises in the Greater Dayton area from 1953 to 2018.  Attached is a schematic of that evolution over a 65 year period.  The schematic would take a bit of verbal explaining but begins with the second VW dealership in Ohio (Motor Imports, Inc.) in 1953 and zigs-and-zags to today where there now is a VW dealership in the northern part of Dayton (Evans) and one in the south suburbs (White-Allen).   But for a brief couple of years, there existed four VW dealerships in this area at the same time.  Much of this research came from review of City Directories in Dayton and Xenia as well as interviews with a couple of folks who worked within several of these dealerships back in the day.

Among the dealers over that 65 year period there were dealership mergers and relocations that spanned Dayton proper as well as Fairborn, Yellow Springs, Xenia, and Wilmington.

But as I've said earlier, to have long been known as a GM town, the presence of Volkswagen. in this area was substantial. This is not to say that VW didn't have its down periods which it did starting around 1974 but the "sweet spot" for VW in this area was likely the period between 1965 and 1968.  

Here's my "flow chart" of VW's evolution in this area:



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