Small block 400's???

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by MikeB

Sounds like a fun job! I always wanted to work at the local Chevy dealership when I was in high school in the mid 1960s. Was on a first name basic with the parts guys and a couple mechanics. I got a really good parts discount (several columns over from list price), and they even gave me a pair of mechanic's coveralls with a Chevy service emblem on them. I was really proud of those things and wore them whenever I was working on my cars (a 51 and then a 55). Can't imagine that happening at today's mega-dealers, but hopefully it still goes on in small towns.

They offered to train me to work in the machine shop mainly turning brake drums, but probably foolishly I turned it down because I wanted to be outside doing things instead of stuck in a little room all day. After about nine or ten months working there I quit and got a service station job at a small town up in the mountains. Less than a year after that, I started working at a little sawmill that was really way up in the mountains. Later I started logging. Did I mention that I liked to work outside?

There pretty much are NO small town dealers anymore. The GM dealer in our county got shut down in 2009 (they still sell/service farm equipment). So we would have to drive about 70 miles to the regional mega dealer.

My relatives in TX are I think the only small town (about 2K pop) dealer that survived the bailout blitz, just because they were selling so many units over a large area. They had just bought two other dealerships in nearby towns in adjoining states in order to expand, but GM.gov forced them to shut those down