Barrow, 6 dealers being added to Colo. Auto Hall of Fame
Six successful and widely known car dealers and an industry-leading supporter will be inducted into the Colorado Automotive Hall of Fame on Thursday evening, May 26, at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. It will be the second class of inductees; the initial group, 50 in number, were honored in Denver last September. The Hall of Fame dinner will be a highlight of the annual meeting of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. Following are a few memories of mine and a bit of information on each of the honorees:
Bill Barrow and Leo Payne: I enjoyed visits with Bill Barrow and Leo Payne in 2005 at Barrow’s retirement party as head of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. I met Barrow for lunch at the Senate Lounge in the Argonaut Hotel building on noon in the fall of 1977. He had assumed the position with the CADA, and one of his first missions, he told me, would be to resurrect the Denver Auto Show, which hadn’t been staged on a regular basis for 20 years. He accomplished that mission – big time. Barrow passed away in 2015. Payne was Denver’s largest car dealer in the 1970s and ‘80s. He loaned me for a week in 1978 a mercedes-benz 240d diesel, which averaged 30.1 miles per gallon. It was very slow, very noisy, but, who knows, it probably is still running today. Payne left the car business in 1991, was later involved in real estate and ranching.
Alfred M. O’meara: The photo of legendary Alfred M. O’meara was provided me for the Colorado Car Book back in 1995 by Bonnie Murray (now bonnie O’meara), the television “voice” of O’meara Ford. She spoke very reverently of “mr. O’meara.” The senior O’meara came here to open O’meara Ford in 1913 from Detroit, where in 1906 he had begun working for Fordmotor Company for $1 a day.
A.J. Guanella: My gosh, can you imagine, my friend A.J. Guanella as a sophomore at Englewood High School began washing cars at Burt Chevrolet in 1949; he is still there, though the dealership is nowunder the name John Elway. He later excelled in sales, was promoted into management and, by 1986, became 15 percent owner of Burt Chevrolet and Burt Subaru. He drove a
’41 Chevrolet Coupe in high school, has been a Chevyman ever since.
Larryh. and Gail Miller: A late-spring snowstorm had just begun the afternoon in 1978 I drove out west to Stevinson Toyota, was handed keys by Larry H. Miller, got in a ’78 Corolla SR-5 hatchback and drove off. The slushy snowbegan sticking to the windshield, I turned the switch to engage the wipers, which stopped in the middle of the windshield. I drove back to the dealership, wheremiller replaced the blown fuse, and away I went. Miller left his position at Stevinson a year or so later and, with help from wife, Gail, built a business empire of Larry H. Miller car dealerships and as owner of the Utah Jazz professional basketball team. He passed away in 2009.
Phil Winslow: When Phil Winslow became president of his family’s Volkswagen dealership in Colorado Springs at age 24 upon the death of his father in 1964, he was the youngestvw dealer in the country. He added the BMW brand in 1983 and today is Colorado’s Time
Dealer of the Year, nominated by Tim Jackson, president and CEO of CADA.
Bill Crouch: When J. William Crouch left his brother Paul’s Desoto Plymouth dealership in Boulder in 1963 to open Bill Crouch Chrysler Plymouth on South Broadway in Englewood, he was the youngest person to be awarded a Chrysler franchise. He later opened Subaru and Acura stores in Boulder. He passed away in 2014.