Salt Lake Tribune | 1916-12-17 | Page 45 | Overland Dealers Buy 113,000 Cars

OVERLAND DEALERS BUY 113,000 CARS Contract Signed at Toledo Convention Pass $100,-000,000 $100,-000,000 Mark. Contracts for 113,000 Overland cars, amountiny to approximately $100. 000,0 00. : hare already been aignM by Overland dealers who have attended the blx con- viUon at the Toledo factory, according j to word which reachM Arch Frowning of the Bro-wntTifj Auto & Supply company, j ThU stupendous amount. however, is i only about two-thirdn of the expected business for the 1917 cam, as there Is one-third of the entire Overland dealers in the United States yet to attend the wnvenuon. This stroke of business is one of the moit BtupendouR achievements In the history his-tory of the automobile industry, flmash-Ing flmash-Ing to fragments nil previous records of Its kind. The b-ljy convention will continue until ; December 33, with fre-flh squads of deal- , erB arriving every other day. It is an- . tlclpated that the amount of contracts to be nlgned durinff the three weeks of the convention will approximate $200, - i OCKj.OOO, tlie entire i:U7 output. The 1 planned production may have to be raised to meet the dealers' demands. ! During the opening week of this con- ! ventlon John N. Willys, the guiding spirit . of this blKffest of all business gatherings,! took to Toledo as his guests 3000 Over- I land dealers, their hankers, prominent cltisens and newspaper men of their 1 cities. His purpose was to acquaint them with the Immensity, resources and stability sta-bility of his Institution, as well ns to Ktve them a preliminary display of the 1917 line. The dealers' contracts for the lft 1 7 season were also made ready. On Monday and Tuesday, "December 4 and 5, 1200 dealers from the southern and middle western atutes signed contracts con-tracts for 25,920 cars more than $0,000,-(100 $0,000,-(100 worth. The south, on the threshold of a x ave of unprecedented prosperity, contracted for 12.000 cars. Tinst Wednesday ami Thursday the Philadelphia zone organization, the Pa-cflflr Pa-cflflr coast dealers and the sales people from northern Illinois and Kscanaba, Mich., signed contracts for 89,460 cars. Twelve thousand of these will be sold on the Pacific coast. The dealers from Ohio, western Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania and New York and West Virginia Vir-ginia closed the week by contracting for 1 5,000 more on Friday and Saturday a grand total of more than 80,000 cars disposed dis-posed of In one week and only one-third of the Overland dealer organization heard from. The enthusiasm and spirit of the convention con-vention beggar description. Pleasure and business travel hand in hand; factory trips, sales talks, motion picture lectures lec-tures on now models and motors, minstrel min-strel shows and band concerts by the Overland organizations, coupled with nightly dinners and banquets at which .more than a thousand men are seated at once, are Just some of the extraordinary features of this history-making confer-w confer-w ence. Practically evei-y phase of this event is without precedent. 9 The Pacific coast Hpecial, which trans- ported the Overland dealers from the coast to Toledo and home again, was the longest transcontinental special train In the history of railroading, fourteen Pullmans making the trip. On this special spe-cial was E, II. Bachrach, Overland dealer at Manila, P. L, with a check for $100,-000 $100,-000 in his pocket as a deposit on his contract for 1017. The first squad arrived In six special trains seventy-two Pullmans which wnich made more than a mile and quar- ter of cars parked In the extensive railroad rail-road yards of the WiUys-Overiand company. com-pany. Seventy-four per cent of the Dixie contingent con-tingent had never been north of the Mason and Dixon line before; 75 per cent of the pacific coast guests had never been east of the Rockies before. The second lap of the convention will begin Monday and will continue throughout through-out this week. The unusual affair will come to a close on December 23.