An Ode to Olds

Even before my time, Ransom Olds founded his car company (103 years ago) and created a company that General Motors desired and acquired. Over the years, the Lansing area has become synonymous with the Olds badge.

Now I happen to know a little about Lansing and Oldsmobile. My folks met in Chicago after a boat ride after the turn of the century and located on a farm just north of Lansing. This is where I was born and raised. If you weren’t farming you probably went to work for Olds or Dow Chemical (in Midland).

After high school I entered Michigan Slate next door in East Lansing and tried to play a little football. Since then I’m proud to say that I’ve been an active alum serving consecutive terms on the Business School, Development and Athletic Council Boards.

My sister’s husband bought used cars for Don McCullagh’s dealerships. (Don also started McCullagh Leasing and sold out to GEC Fleet.) Yes, I know a little about Olds and Lansing.

I personally knew and find it easy to recall a respectable string of successful fleet directors at Olds over the last 40 years. Ed Stanley originally got them into the fleet sales mainstream. John Wellman enjoyed the heyday ’80s. Chuck Dietrich and John Lynch both had a run at it. Most recently it was the amiable Jack Griffin, who now has a Washington, DC assignment in fleet.

What many of our current readers do not know is that Olds was riding high in the mid-80s, selling more than a million cars. The Olds Cutlass was the top fleet car, rakish and great resale value.

Between Mark Rosenstock at Dale Olds in the Bronx, Tom Mourning at Ray Olds, Tom Scolan at Weil Olds and Don Fenton at Faul Olds (these in the Chicago area), they were enjoying banner years serving fleets. Fenton alone sold nearly 5,000 in one year.

The Cutlass also gave Chevrolet fits. Even though it was priced at $400-$500 over the comparable Chevy, the Cutlass value approached nearly $2,000 more in resale. It may be where lifecycle costing began.

During the mid-to-late ’80s, Don Kolb (now with Manheim) was an account man for PHH and then took the fleet manager’s job at McDonald’s. It’s always been a prime account and then single-sourced with Olds. Judy Baxter, now a fleet manager at Motorola, was Kolb’s number two. It was also when Olds decided to push the controversial diesel engine. McDonald’s bought Olds diesels big-time; they built underground gas tanks. They fielded complaints about noise, scarcity of fueling sites and mechanical problems. That’s when the resale values tanked.

John Rock was a fleet guy all the way and is still a personal friend.

He was saddled with inheriting Olds after GM, and in the late ’80s drew the lines for each division in terms of pricing. Olds didn’t do so well after that. Overall, it was a wise decision as many of the GM divisional fleet directors would fight and undercut pricing for some of the same accounts. Jack Losch, then fleet director for Pontiac, once shared with me how bad it actually got at Mary Kay. This kind of internal competition was costly and went on too long.

Rock also was assigned the “one-price, no dicker” sales philosophy, which didn’t work either. He did personally congratulate Griffin on his largest sales ever of 12,000 Achievas to the GSA. Later, it became a singularly destined rental car.

Some people volunteer to me that they cannot understand GM’s decision to drop Olds. They say, “Why wasn’t it Saturn; or Buick or some other division?” The Aurora and Alero are outstanding models in a good lineup with loyal dealers. I don’t have an answer.

Yes, I know a bit about Olds and Lansing; maybe too much. It hurts me in my heart to see it go.