Goodbye, Cooper Motor Company

The service bay of the former Cooper Motor Company building. Years of carbon soot, grease and character are baked into the walls.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Wood floors.

That was the first thing I noticed when we walked inside the dusty former showroom along U.S. Route 24 on auction day. I've seen a few long-established automobile dealerships in my time, but never one with wood plank floors. The tall plaster walls and ceilings along with the spartan decor suggested the Cooper Motor Company was established many moons ago. Overall, the entire setup was more reminiscent of a barn rather than a once-proud Pontiac dealership. The look was complete with a grime, a loft, and utility lights with tattered cloth-braided wiring and old incandescent bulbs hanging in the middle of the room. There was no luxury here, only the bare necessities.

Sullivan Auctioneers handled the auction, and quickly moved things along.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Need an oil catch can? How about a creeper? Sure, they have one or two of those.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Parts galore, in no particular order, were found inside the service and parts area inside Cooper Motor Company.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

On the day of the big liquidation auction, the mood was nostalgia mixed with the sadness of the end-of-life for a Main Street wonder. A group of men wearing matching jackets proclaimed their loyalty to the Pontiac / Oakland club. Collectors that were serious about grabbing whatever treasures were leftover from the dealership’s heyday. Townspeople gathered to take a walk through the place before the keys were turned over to the new owner. And then there were people like Sarah and yours truly, just out for a little adventure on a boring Saturday.

It was truly a patchwork of curious creatures.

The small display area where the new Chieftans and Catalinas once sat were now home to racks of hastily-organized AC Delco parts still in their original boxes. Kent-Moore tool sets once used by mechanics (not technicians) were propped up against the walls, and a massive amount of literature was strewn about the entire office. We were witnessing the liquidation auction of nearly a century-old business that ceased sometime in the 1970s, and was sealed in time until now... and it was heartbreaking.



This wasn't a Lambrecht Chevrolet-style auction. There weren't rows of untouched original cars in the back forty. But there were a few choice Pontiacs to be had. There were oil drums with GM stampings on them. Seat cover kits new in the box. New old stock radios and exhaust systems. There were a ton of dashboards and 68-76 full-sized car interior pieces. Lots of green plastic and trim... who needs that? 

And literature. 

There was so much literature to be had if you knew what you were looking for. 

Who wouldn't love to rummage through the rubbish?
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

A stray windshield was hidden in plain sight upstairs. Notice the old Libbey-Owens-Ford stamp on the box.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Since we love a good auction of car goodies, Sarah and I arrived with a few hundred dollars in our pockets and an empty Suburban (just in case). As the auction got under way, we noticed things were going fairly cheap. Dealer brochures for 1953 Pontiacs? Five bucks. DuPont paint color chips? Two-fifty. Shop manuals? Those were about ten bucks. We bought a few things, but mostly just perused the offerings and wished we had a larger garage and workshop to store all the neat old things that piqued our interest. 

Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Jackpot.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Our parts haul.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

We did manage to come home with a clock, a few Chevrolet parts, a tail lamp for an early 80s Olds Delta 88, and an AM/FM radio. For some reason we also bought two boxes of NOS GM wheel weights and a some mixed odds and ends with fasteners and hardware. One happened to include a few original aluminum Plymouth keys from the Forward Look era, which is perfect for Minerva, our '55 Plymouth.

What we really wanted to drag home were the cars. Many of the remaining Cooper Motor cars were in remarkable condition, left inside the main building for decades and in the same condition they were back when they were traded in on a new model, they were essentially frozen in time. Mr. Cooper must have had a thing for green, because a few of these old boats were in 'no-sale green' as they used to say. Perhaps that's why they were still hanging around. 

Someone scored a really clean, low-mileage original 1959 Pontiac Catalina on this day.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

A car that looked like it could take you to the moon and back, the lines of the '59s were pure science fiction.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

I spy a '51 Pontiac, and another '59 hang out next to a clean early 80s Delta 88.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches 

There was a mint 1959 Pontiac sedan with 35,000 miles on the odometer and a hefty 389 under the hood. It was a few soap suds away from winning a preservation award at an AACA meet. Paperwork in the window showed that Cooper Motor Company had worked on the car last in 1967, and somehow it never left after that. We can't understand why because the car looked like it was about 5 years old and presented itself very well. 

Would this '73 Safari fit in your garage? It might be close.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

There was also a 73 Pontiac Safari station wagon finished in medium blue and needing a mechanical once-over before being serviceable. We love the big Malaise wagons, even if they look vaguely like a Beluga whale from behind. A few other mid-70s full-sized behemoths dotted the back lot as well in various stages of togetherness. They were solid as they day they were new, and one hopes they didn't become demo derby all-stars shortly afterwards.  

A scene out of Trailer Park Boys, or an auction in rural Illinois? You decide.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Every time a Green Ventura shows up, we think of Roy Scheider's car in The Seven Ups.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Look at just how clean this Ventura's 250 cubic inch six cylinder motor is. It even had A/C, but its safe to say it needs a charge.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

There was also the green Ventura coupe that had some sort of front end hit and needed a dashboard. It looked as if it was a respray and rebuild that got shelved. It was otherwise clean, and would have made a lovely low-mileage driver for the right bidder. These X-body cousins to the Chevy Nova also tend to become drag racers in their second life. 

Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

According to census records and an old University of Illinois alumni publication, we know that sometime prior to 1919 a young man named David Cooper owned and operated an automobile dealership at 114 W. Broadway in Astoria, just a few doors down from Farmer's State Bank. The alumni blurb mentions the fact that Mr. Cooper would sell you a "henrietta" on terms or cash. Henrietta may have referred to an early steam automobile built in New York, or perhaps something else. It's not exactly clear what that nickname meant, but at some point in time Mr. Cooper turned to selling other makes before settling on Pontiacs for the remainder of his days.

At some point, it's believed that his son Robert Cooper took over the company until what appears to be the late 1970s. It would seem to make sense to get out of selling the General's wares before the 1977 downsizing happened. The fuel crunch, increasing foreign competition, and quality issues would have added to the already-stressful daily grind of owning your own business in middle America.

Sarah taking a stroll through downtown Astoria. The auction created quite a stir that April afternoon.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Like many small Midwestern American towns, Astoria, Illinois was once home to a great deal of successful farms. There were two banks along Broadway Avenue, a large village hall, a park in the center of town, and the necessary restaurants and other specialty shops catering to the needs of the local gentry. Astoria also sits close to the former farm once operated by my Great Uncle's family. It was a common place to do business and shopping over the years. 

 Today, things are a little quieter. 

Astoria's fire department.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Farmer's National Bank in downtown Astoria.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

The Cooper Motor Company building. If you blink, you'd miss it. There's no clue as to the treasure inside.
Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

Newer facades cover the historic storefronts. Pedestrians don't exist. Blank buildings with little life dot the square. The closest Casey's General Store is 17 miles away. Sure, there's still a bank, a Post Office and a Dollar General on the way out of town... but it's mostly pretty quiet place. Farming? Sure, there’s still plenty of agriculture but it’s the large-scale kind.

Incidentally, the entire Cooper building sold at the end of the auction for a whopping $29,000. That's right. For the price of a Ford Fusion, someone bought a century-old car dealership with two hydraulic lifts and enough storage for any hobbyist's collection. The only trade-off? 

It's in Astoria, Illinois... and trust me, you can't get there from here. 

Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

If there's anything to be gleaned from watching a once-profitable dealership in the Heartland get systematically dismantled by vultures at an auction... it's this: History is quickly disappearing. Sure, businesses come and go over time. It's the natural life cycle. Will car enthusiasts put these stagnant parts to good use on their restoration projects? Definitely. But the days of the Main Street car dealers are over. Heck, the days of Main Street anything are over. Sears is going by the wayside and J.C. Penny and K-Mart are toast. If you say "five and dime" anymore, people look at you like you're from another planet.

Photo Credit: Throwin' Wrenches

The remnants of our glory days are quickly fading as retail and rural America dies a slow, agonizing death. We were lucky to witness the treasures that lurked beneath the surface of a dead storefront and breathe the dust of decades past for a few hours on a spring afternoon. I hope you enjoyed a few photos that captured that moment, for what it's worth. 

-D