Jim Earp Dodge, Omaha, Nebraska

[lloyd3]

Got some interesting information today from a local fellow I'm working with here. According to him,  there there was only one Dodge dealership in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area in the late 1960s. The dealership finally folded in the early 2000s. Can anybody here expound on that?  If this information is accurate, then I can be pretty sure I now know where my car was ordered and delivered from in the Spring/Summer of 1968.

Just found Mr. Earp's obit. From reading it, it would appear that the Dodge Garage was brand new in 1968.  He opened several other dealerships after that. His personal slogan was reported to be "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell....and advertise".

[lloyd3]

Amazing! I've owned this car for going on 24-years now and information has been very hard to extract about it's likely early years until today. This fellow I'm working with is a Ford guy (owns an environmental drilling company). Drives nothing but Ford trucks and owns 2 60s Mustangs (68 fastback and a 73 Mach 1). He did, however, grow up here and was part of  the street racing scene in the 80s and 90s. He tells me that if my car was being campaigned here in the early to mid 1980s, it would have been at Scribner Raceway,  an old millitary airbase converted to a drag-strip in 1980 (or even at Thunder Valley up in South Dakota, but Scribner was much closer).  I'm  not sure what provenance means for a car anymore, but I'm pleased to get my questions answered after all these years.  Wish the early owners hadn't expired so-early in their lives (so I could pick their brains directly!),  but what the heck , this is almost as good.

It's still all speculation but...well-informed at this point.

[6bblgt]

I don't know if you already have this, but:

JIM EARP CHRYSLER-PLYMOUTH INC
5500 L STREET
OMAHA NE 68117
phone:  402-734-1500
dealer # 64182

based on the dealership's name - did they also sell Dodges? 

here are additional dealerships that existed in the early '70s (don't know what they sold, some of them may have been parts only)
there were 4 automobile dealerships listed in Omaha in 1988 (CHRYSLER and/or PLYMOUTH and/or DODGE)
(3 with different names not included below, the exception was Jim Earp C-P and they still had the same phone number that's on the key fob)

the location is currently a J.D.Byrider

[6bblgt]

...... Drives nothing but Ford trucks and owns 2 60s Mustangs (68 fastback and a 73 Mach 1). ......

so, what is the other '60s Mustang? 

[69CoronetRT]

I grew up in the Omaha area. There were others besides Jim Earp. There was at least Olsen and Baxter.
There was at least one in Council Bluffs but I don't remember the name.

Jim Earp's tag for electronic ads was voiced by a deep voiced male. I still remember it decades later.

"Nobody. But nooooooobody undersells Jim Earp Chrysler Plymouth. 55th and L. Omaha."

[69CoronetRT]

Amazing! I've owned this car for going on 24-years now and information has been very hard to extract about it's likely early years until today. This fellow I'm working with is a Ford guy (owns an environmental drilling company). Drives nothing but Ford trucks and owns 2 60s Mustangs (68 fastback and a 73 Mach 1). He did, however, grow up here and was part of  the street racing scene in the 80s and 90s. He tells me that if my car was being campaigned here in the early to mid 1980s, it would have been at Scribner Raceway,  an old millitary airbase converted to a drag-strip in 1980 (or even at Thunder Valley up in South Dakota, but Scribner was much closer).  I'm  not sure what provenance means for a car anymore, but I'm pleased to get my questions answered after all these years.  Wish the early owners hadn't expired so-early in their lives (so I could pick their brains directly!),  but what the heck , this is almost as good.

It's still all speculation but...well-informed at this point.

There were two drag strips. Omaha Dragway, iirc, and Cornhusker dragway (now an airport). I went to both as a kid. We also went to Kearney. Scribner came along "later".. I don't remember if the were open in the late 70's or not.

[lloyd3]

Great stuff folks, thank you so much! This car was ordered in the Spring of 1968 and it's SPD is July 5th. I was focused on who was around to sell Dodges at that specific time.  Clearly there were several dealerships after that.  The build sheet for the Daytona was in '69, were they around in 1968?

Also, my records for the car shows it being purchased by a Gregg Blakely in New Jersey in 1990. He was the one who converted it back to a street car (reskinned the quarters, took the battery out of the trunk, etc.).  He reportedly had purchased it from a Hemmings advertisement posted by a fellow in Missouri Valley, Iowa (who had been campaigning it locally). Scribner looks to be less than twenty miles away from his address there.

[lloyd3]

6bblgt: His 68 is a 289 auto car. The '73 is a 351C auto. Oh, I get it.  A 73 is a 60s holdover to me.

[69CoronetRT]

You could search the Omaha World Herald archive for dealers and info:

https://www.omaha.com/archive/newsbank/