Looking for Spedding Chevrolet (Denver, Boulder: car rental, sales, rental)

[TooOldToo]

I'm doing some family research and I am trying to find any photos or info on Spedding Chevrolet .
Thanks .

[davidv]

Spedding Chevrolet was located up north at I-25 and US-36. It was sold in the mid 1990s, but I can't remember to whom. The dealership has changed hands a couple of times.

It was owned by Doug Spedding, who was successful enough to buy Denver's USFL football team, and later the minor league hockey team Colorado Flames. Spedding died a few years ago.

Search for Doug Spedding and you might find something. Everything I find is contained in subscription archives.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by davidv

Spedding Chevrolet was located up north at I-25 and US-36. It was sold in the mid 1990s, but I can't remember to whom. The dealership has changed hands a couple of times.

It was owned by Doug Spedding, who was successful enough to buy Denver's USFL football team, and later the minor league hockey team Colorado Flames. Spedding died a few years ago.

Search for Doug Spedding and you might find something. Everything I find is contained in subscription archives.

Would that be the now-former Chesrown Chevrolet?

[davidv]

Here is the timeline I was able to piece together:

Spedding Chevrolet was sold Doug Spedding's Partner, Marshall Chesrown, and became Chesrown Chevrolet.

Chesrown was sold to Republic Industries (owned by Wayne Huizenga) in 1997. It became an AutoNation dealership under the John Elway AutoNation banner until 2006. In 2006 AutoNation dropped Elway's name for the GO Automotive banner.

[Scmpeach]

Who is Douglas Spedding to you? Just curious, he's my grandpa.

[JohnnyDenver]

"We've got nice surprises at Spedding Chevrolet . . . . at the Boulder Turnpike on the Valley Highway."

Prior to being Spedding, it was Frontier Chevrolet. In 1981 I bought a Fiat X-19 Bertone from them. Was a piece of crap, but I held onto it for a few years.

[garrieray]

I would like to know where I can look to find a radio commercial for spedding Chevrolet. I was able to listen to ktlk radio at night in rapid city south Dakota. the commercial was sung buy a female much in the likeness of judy Collins; just a acoustic guitar and her voice. I would appreciate any help. garrie r

[Suzatlarge]

Have you contacted the helpful folks in the Denver Public Library's Western History & Genealogy Department? They are the bomb. They also have a huge online searchable digitized photo collection, but don't limit your efforts to that.

Seriously. Get onto them.

[BabyFace Killer]

I worked at Frontier Chevrolet in Denver as a salesman 1978-79. The original name was Spedding Chevrolet, it was changed to Frontier Chevrolet after some bad publicity around 1972 related to turned back odometers and some other shady business practices.

One complaint I recall was sales staff saying vehicles had dealer added items like pinstripes,undercoating etc added to them during price negotiations to pump up the total vehicle price when the items were never on the vehicle. After the closing and the customer taking delivery of the vehicle and noticing no pin stripes, undercoating etc had been installed they would complain to the dealership. When questioned the sales managers would say those items were dropped from the deal during price negotiations and they would not be installing them on the vehicles.

One of the conditions of staying in business laid down by the State District Attorney after a few complaints (and a 1.2 million dollar lawsuit on the odometer thing) was that they must make an audio recording of the final closing in the finance office. The customer and dealer had to clearly state all closing details on the audio recording, mileage, interest rates, loan terms, trade vehicle actual cash value, mileage and buyer and seller declare that no other items had been promised to the customer. I believe that was one of the first dealerships to record disclosures at vehicle sales closing. All the legal issues other then the need to record sales on audio was in the rearview mirror when I came on board in 1978.

I remember my sales manager was Rodney Rodriguez, General Manager was Rick Roher, Business Manager was a women named Margaret (forgot her last name it's been a while), Kim Spedding worked in the title or Finance office and Doug Spedding Jr. (we called him little Dougie) was still in school but detailed cars weekends and during the summer. I went out to eat and drink with my sales manager at the Colorado Mine Company and my manager rode around on his Harley with Buck Scott on the weekends.

Spedding at the time had owning interest in Frontier Chevrolet, Douglas Toyota (managed by Eddie Calus and his damn little poodle that would **** on all the car tires), Dollar Car rental franchise, and a couple of out of state Chevy and Toyota dealerships. I know one was in Los Vegas, don't remember the others. I think he also had a interest in some sports team. I know Lyle Alzado and a couple of other Broncos and Nugget players came into the dealership.

Spedding had Ron Pietrafeso, a detective on the Colorado Organized Crime Strike Force as his "Head of Security". I know because I delivered a new 4x4 pickup to him and drove the new vette Ron Pietrafeso had been driving back to the dealership. It was the start of ski season and he wanted to have a 4x4 to make the weekend trips to Vail. This was during the introduction of CAFE laws and anything with a V-8 was selling for a premium. We had 2k over sticker markup on the gas guzzlers, Vettes, Camaro Z-28's and trucks.

Note: I questioned my manager on who this Pietrafeso guy was and why did he get to drive these high demand vehicles as demo's as I had never seen him around doing anything at the dealership. I was told "you don't want to know so quit asking". This was the same answer I got when every couple of weeks some wiseguy looking dudes from Detroit would show up and meet with Spedding for a few hours.

Rumor on the sales floor was that Spedding was initially financed by shady folks in Detroit and his business interests were money laundering for organized crime out of Detroit. True or just cooler talk??...who knows, it was the 70's and cocaine was as plentiful as the snow. We had one salesman who showed up on the floor, never took a customer yet deals in his name kept popping up on the sales board. I asked what that was about and was told that Spedding was doing someone a favor and providing this guy a shadow job until some court thing was over. I was later shown a newspaper article by another salesman that said a person by that same name was out on bail awaiting charges for "conspiracy to commit murder" in a murder for hire plot. They were crediting this guy all the dealership Fleet sales...he never left his desk and after a month or so disappeared as fast as he showed up.

At the time I was the youngest salesman they had ever hired, Rick Roher gave me a chance and the first month I was on the floor I was the top salesman with 31 vehicles sold. I was awarded for top truck sales 1978, Rocky Mountain District by Chevrolet. I continued to be in the top of the sales rankings until I left in 1979 when the second oil embargo killed the auto sales. We went from about 30 salesmen down to 8 in a few months time. I decided I wanted to choose a different path in life and left the automobile sales business for good.

Sometime in the 1980's the dealership was sold to Marshall Chesrown Chevrolet which then became Autonation.

Looking at Google maps much has changed in the area since 1978. The original Frontier/Spedding Chevrolet was located where the Cart track is now located and much of the area where the current dealership is located and property behind it was home to a Fashion College if I recall correctly. The original Frontier Chevrolet showroom was circular and the building exterior was yellow.

I must say that Doug Spedding was always gracious to me (he called me Baby Faced Killer because I was good at closing deals with high gross profits). I enjoyed my time working there and learned a lot of hard life lessons while doing so.

So to all the folks who worked there AJ, Goldstein, Rodney Rodriguez, Kim and Doug Spedding, Rick Roher, Jimmy Bissett and all the others whose names have slipped from my memory over time I hope you had a good life and thanks for the memories.

[iSilentP]

Here's a pic I came across... https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-D7ZHx2