Looking for anything related to Davison Buick - Pontiac in St. Charles, IL such as a license plate, license plate frame, dealer emblem, etc. I have a ‘72 Buick that was delivered to this dealer in very late Summer of ‘72. Here is the dealer info from the Sloan documents for the car: 10-870 Davison Buick-Pontiac 212 W. Main St. St. Charles, IL 60174 Thanks,
Hi Gary, I live a short drive from this location. If you need any foot work to be done feel free to message me. Pretty sure this address is now a bar, called Alley 64, which caters to the biker crowd. The building is long and narrow and is not finished in the interior, ie, exposed brick walls, old wooden floors. I can see this being a car dealership at some time in the past. Tom Mooney
Tom, Thanks for the reply and offer. I just looked on Google Streetview and I can see how this could have been a small showroom, but I wonder if they had a service department and parts department, and where did they store the new and used cars? Times sure have changed and this is very different from most modern-day GM dealerships.
Hi Gary, Hard to say...but the building is unusually deep. There currently is a large parking lot at the rear of this building. I`ll poke around and see if I can come across a period photo that can lend some insight. There are quite a few period photos of this part of Main st. floating around...in the cultural center, on the walls of local businesses, etc. Tom Mooney
It looks deep in the satellite image: But when you look at the map with street and building information, you will see that a big part of the building belongs to 213 W.Main Street
Your graphic is incorrect...there is a generous parking area behind the main building (blacktop in the satellite photo) some of which has been built upon by an outdoor deck (brown roof) but originally would have been additional parking and on the other side of cedar street there is a large parking lot. The satellite image is an accurate representation.
Look at the graphic again, it shows the parking area and the buildings. The back of the building belongs to 213 W. Main Street not, to the small building (former dealership) at 212 W. Main St. Green is the former dealership. Purple is 213 W. Main Street. Blue is the parking lot that has nothing to do with W. Main Street, it's located at Cedar Street. (Red) So this is what belongs to 212 W. Main Street:
Lol...I drink there and park my bike on the blacktop behind 212 Main St. The satellite image you originally posted with the building highlighted in red is 212 Main, all one continuous building. The last satellite image you posted is not highlighted correctly, it`s all one building and address. 212 Main extends from Main St to Cedar and the blacktop parking at the rear of the building services 212 Main. Tom
Hi Gary, I did some poking around the St Charles Cultural Center and stopped in for a beer at Alley 64 today. I found these newspaper ads and an image of Davison Buick, Main St looking east. The dealership signage is evident. The angle distorts things a little but I used architectural references in the picture to confirm Davison Buick was the single story dark brown brick building in the google images. If you look at the foundation of the building in the google image it`s obvious that there was a street level drive in service entrance/overhead door on the left, the bottom of which is now bricked up. The building has the old barrel vaulted roof with the old time skylights I used to look for when exploring the attics of older Buick dealerships. I left a message for the owners of Alley 64 to call me if they have any more images of the original dealership. The ads are dated from as early as `63 and late as `73 to ad some time frame. I had to reduce the size of the period photo to upload it to the v8 site so if you want a larger image message me and I`ll get it to you. Tom Mooney
Wow Tom, thanks for the great reply. I really appreciate the effort you took to visit the place and gather the vintage photo and ads which are all super cool! I bought the car from the original family in 2004 and if my memory is correct, I picked the car up from them in Oak Lawn, IL at that time. So the car still wasn't too far from the Davison dealer (maybe ~40 miles?). When I got it in 2004 it had 25k miles and wore the original deluxe wheel covers so it looked like this: I used it as my daily driver for many years so we replaced the manual drum brakes with power disk brakes and swapped from 14x6 wheels to a set of 15x7 so I would have more tire choices. I had to switch to different hubcaps since the originals wouldn't fit the 15" wheels.
Nice...yes, Oak Lawn is a suburb of Chicago so not too far. The original image I have is twice the size of the one I posted because I had to resize to post. If you want the original sized image, about 2.5 megs I believe, send me a PM and I`ll get it to you. Tom
Thanks Tom, I just sent a direct message. Any idea when the dealer left that location? I wonder if they moved somewhere else or simply closed up completely.
