Читать книгу Lost Muscle Car Dealerships - Duncan Scott Brown - Страница 24

Peyton Cramer had zero experience running a dealership but plenty of experience managing large operations. He also had ample knowledge about directing racing activities and performance sales.

In the early 1960s, Peyton was working at Ford Motor Company. His career at Ford became exciting when his management acumen was tapped to help run the Shelby American operation. Carroll Shelby was excellent at building Mustang GT350s and Shelby Cobras but murky with management. Ford sent Peyton to California to get things organized. He eventually became general manager at Shelby.

This map illustrates the close proximity of the “regular” Dana location to the used lots operating under the Dana umbrella. The Hi-Performance Center was located about 0.7 mile south of the “regular” dealership. (Map data © 2019 Google)

Peyton Cramer ran the high-performance outlet of Dana Chevrolet. He gutted the former Simpson Buick building to develop a space to prep race cars and complete high-performance work on customer vehicles.

In mid-1965, Peyton shifted from Shelby general manager to setting up European Shelby dealerships. In 1966, with Shelby car building being farmed out to the Ford factory, the Shelby operations were going to slow down. Peyton decided this was the time to strike out on his own.