Cool Brigance Chevrolet Memorobilia.

[55chevy]

Frank. Tell us a little more about Brigance.. Did they do conversions or were they just in the 'network' selling cars for Yenko and other dealers? Anyone have a Brigance car? Would love to see some pics. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[hvychev]

Ed, Brigance never sold any Yenko's but the Mr. Ed that I refer to left Brigance and went to Fencil Tufo Chevrolet in Glendale Heights IL where from what I am told brought Yenko Deuces to that dealership. It was rumored that Brigance may have done some 427 conversions at the dealership. I am currently in the process of researching Mr. Ed so I will keep you all posted with the results.

Here are some good threads on this site to read about Mr. Ed, Brigance Chevy, and Fencil Tufo Chevy.

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/show...o=&fpart=1

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/show...o=&fpart=1

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/show...o=&fpart=1

[55chevy]

Thanks

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[scuncio]

Awesome stuff Frank!!

[Schonyenko2]

55chevy, If you go to the first fire topic about two months ago, the red/wht striped deuce, owned by Gene Engler, and the forest green deuce owned by Dan Hornbeck are two of Mr Ed's babys from Fencil Tufo. I emailed him pics of the Engler deuce a couple of weeks ago. He said it brought back a lot of memories. Very nice man. Must be the last name. Schonye [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[55chevy]

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[Belair62]

Scary but I remember those key holders...

[hvychev]

Guys I said in an above post that I have been researching Mr. Ed for a while. I had a very interesting conversation with him on Thursday 9-11-03. The stuff he told me was very interesting but some may be a bit controversial. Please remember that he is not active in the muscle car hobby although he is involved in antique cars. His interests primarily lie in vintage pre war classics and cars of the 1950s. He is a successful Chevrolet Dealer and very sharp and has no reason to BS. He is actually flattered that people care so much about what he did which he said "was just his job back then." He said that he is getting constant calls and letters now from people that have "read about him on the Internet." (this would lead me to believe that people from this site have been contacting him) The things that he told me were all from memory and not stuff that he researched in preparation for our conversation. A lot is stuff that he just brought up that I didn't even have to ask about. This post is going to be very long but I think that it is going to be good for our club and information that will be priceless for our hobby about what happened back then.

Ed Schoenthaller was originally from Riverside, Illinois and went to Riverside Brookfield High School where he graduated in 1959. He went to college for four years and when he came out of college he said that he was the only guy back in 1964 that was a four year college grad that wanted to be a car salesman. (I would have to agree! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) He said that he went to apply at Brigance Chevrolet in Oak Park, Illinois and was turned away because of lack of experience. He went to the Ford dealership down the street where he started selling cars and became salesman of the month within two months! He told me that he was always a gear head and while working at the Ford dealership bought a brand new "64 R code 427 Ford" He told me that he still wanted to work at Brigance so after about 8 months he went back there in June of 1965 and talked the owner Dave Brigance into letting him work there and started to work selling only new cars.

Ed was a natural and after his first year he sold 287 new cars at Brigance. He said that after 3 years there he was the top salesman for Chevrolet and was selling between 350-400 new cars a year. Guys to give you an idea, currently in the auto industry an average salesperson sells about 10 cars per month times 12 months so that comes to 120 cars total a year. That is new cars, trucks, and used vehicles combined. Mr. Ed was selling upwards of 400 NEW CARS ALONE PER YEAR! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img] That does not include trucks or used cars. That is about 4 times what the average sales person sells now. He told me that half of those cars were hi performance cars. Since he was young and a car enthusiast he talked Mr. Brigance into letting him start a Hi-Performance Dept. at Brigance to fill the demand of that ever growing Chevrolet segment. He had many customers and when a young person would come in the old sales people would flip them to see "Mr. Ed" because of his unbelievable product knowledge and from what he said "He spoke their language." He told me that the name Mr. Ed came from the difficulty people had pronouncing his last name. The other sales people would just say "Oh you are waiting for Mr. Ed" or "Go see Mr. Ed" He said that people were more respectful back then so the people just went along with it. He also said that the TV show with the talking horse helped matters with it being easy to remember.

Brigance Chevrolets Hi-Po Dept. became a success. People came from all around to see Mr. Ed and he said after 2 years in the business he never had to take a fresh walk in customer again. His business all came from repeats, referrals, and his direct marketing of Hi-po Chevys. Mr. Ed said that some really neat and rare cars were sold out of Brigance. He says that he sold "the first Z-16 Chevelle in Chicago which was red with a black vinyl top" that he said the buyer paid sticker price for. He said that he fondly remembers when the Camaro came out in 1967 and remembers ordering "Special Performance" package Camaros in 1967 which we all know were 67 Z28's and remembers the cross ram set up's comming in the trunks of the Camaros. He told me that his favorite car to sell were the L78 engine cars. He told me he sold countless Chevelle's, Nova's, and Camaro's with the L78 396. According to him they were severly underrated in horse power. Ed mentioned that he sold an L88 Corvette in 1967 & 1969. I personally don''t know if this is accurate and wonder if any Vette guys know of any Brigance sold L88. Now for the really controversial part. Ed told me that he sold at least "10-12 factory 427 Camaro's" He told me that with the amount of volume that he sold and being the Chevrolet top salesman for 1968 he met the president of Chevrolet and many other top executives. He told me that his COPO connection was a man by the name of Barney Crass in the Arganov A building of Chevrolet. (I think that I got the name of the building wrong since I was writing as fast as he talked maybe Jim Mattison could correct me.) He said that Barney Crass told him that he sold 10% of 427 Camaros that were sold in the country which Ed said he later found out to be untrue. He said that Brigance never striped them or came up with a clever marketing program for them and just sold them as plain racer style Camaro's. Now here is the part that I find interesting. Ed insists that he ordered Nova's & Chevelles with the 427 from the factory as well. Remember the add from Car Craft Magazine Sept. 1968 that JoeC posted a while back with Mr. Ed advertising 425 HP Chevrolets? He was suprised that no Brigance Chevrolet has ever been found and documented as a COPO car. I asked him about transplant/conversion cars and he said that they only did a couple to his knowledge which consisted of swapping the 396 block for a short block 427 and just used the rest of the 396 components. He said that this was done by Billy Harris a Brigance Chevrolet Tech. A neat thing that he told me was when he worked at Brigance he took a 1961 Fuel injected Corvette in on trade which he bought for himself and the service Dept. transplanted a 427 in that car and fabricated a stinger style hood so it would clear the carb.

Mr. Ed's career ended at Brigance in exactly 5 years when he started in June 1970 at Fencil-Tufo Chevrolet named after it's two partners Dick Fencil & John Tufo. Mr. Ed was hired as a manager and was supposed to start a Hi-performence dept. there as well which he said they never had even in the 60's. The bad news was that Chevrolet put a stop to Hi-Po Chevys by lowering the compression and horse power. He remembers clearly that he had 2 1970 LS6 Chevelle demos one that was Cranberry Red with a black vinyl top and the other which was Fathom Green. He said that when he started at Fencil Tufo he read about Don Yenko in magazines and wanted to start carrying his cars. He said that he actually contacted Don Yenko and ordered Yenko Deuce Novas which we know that he had ordered 6 for sure 4 of which have been found. He mentioned that also he had met Don Yenko in person before as well. He said that he tried to bring other specialty cars to Fencil Tufo including Cosworth Vegas. (My friend that introduced me to Ed bought one from him brand new).

Fencil Tufo Chevrolet was the last dealership that Mr. Ed worked at before becoming a dealer when he was only 36 years old. To give you an idea he told me that he had made 40-50K per year in the 60's and when he started at Fencil Tufo in the 70's he was making over 100K per year. Could you imagine making that type of money back then?! No wonder he was able to then buy his own dealership. He just chalks it up to getting paid big money for what he loved to do. If we could all so lucky. Brigance Chevrolet was a breeding ground for sales people and managers that became car dealers and from what Mr. Ed says 17 car dealers emerged from Brigance Chevrolet. That has got to be one of the highest rates of success of any other known dealership. He said that Brigance made men of their salespeople. They only had a 3 car showroom for the new cars and a 2 car showroom for the used. They had a HUGE storage lot at Diversey & Naragansett in Chicago. He said that when he started at Brigance they made all new hires bring a list of 300 potential customers with them. He had to get his high school yearbook and mail out to every one of the students which he remembers his wife doing all the envelopes and postage. They also did no advertising but gave the salespeople 100 dollars per month to do individual advertising. Remember the add posted from Car Craft and the news paper article from February, 16th 1969 where the Jack Douglass add was on the top? Mr. Ed had a friend from high school that was in charge of sales for Peterson Publications for the Chicago area and sold Mr. Ed add space in Motor Trend, Car Craft, and Hot Rod magazine. He also did his own advertising in the newspaper which was posted on this site.

Overall I think that Mr. Ed was an amazing man. In His and my opinion he sold more new hi performance Chevrolet cars than any individual in the country. If I am wrong somebody please correct me. He has been the car business for just short of 40 years 26 years of which he has owned his own dealership. He has been married for 40 years, has a car collection and private museum consisting of 36 cars which include Deusenbergs, Auburns, Cords, and he also has some "muscle" like the LAST 1967 427 435 HP Corvette, 57 Fuel Injected Chevrolet, 61 Impala, 55 Nomad, Etc., Etc., Etc. He is a member of several car clubs and organizations such as Auburn Deusenberg board of trusties. Please remember that when you read this that I was just writing down what was said and that peoples memories of what happened 35-40 years ago could be a little distorted. His memory of exact dates, names, numbers, product knowledge, & RPO codes was amazing to me. Remember that he is not into muscle cars like us and this was not researched and all just from memory from way back then. I think that he would make a GREAT guest speaker for the supercar reunion. (I am sure that I could persuade him! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif[/img]) As a matter of fact when he called me he JUST got off the phone with Jack Douglass who he says has been a friend of his for years. Because of my friend Wes S that a couple of members met in person who introduced Ed and myself he has invited me to a private tour of his collection and all of us are supposed to go out to lunch afterwards including Jack Douglass!! What a lunch that will be!!! Pics & details will be posted of course.

[camarojoe]

Just don't drink too much over lunch, Frank [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]


Cool story...bet your fingers are tired! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[Mr70]

He is a Very Interesting man.
I have known him & His wife for a few years now,after buying an 86 IROC new from him.His dealership today was Krumpholz Chev/Buick back then,and that was where that 4K mile Green Mist LS6 was sold new from.
Back in 1980,I bought Hi-perf and stock parts for My Chevelle out of a garage in Waukegan from a man named Bill Harris.I met him at VetteFest at the International Ampitheater in Chicago.
He later went on to open a Store in Zion called,American Chevelle in 1981.He sold all Hi-perf and stock Camaro-Chevelle-Nova Parts,and I bought everything I could from him then.He is no longer in Business,but I still have his Business cards.He really new his stuff.

Ed told me also Fencl-Tufo sold a total of 10 Deuces,and also relayed the 1969 Factory ordered 427 Engined story to me as well.
Ed has invited me to his Museum also,as it turns out he built the Building down the street from my House,so I am awaiting his invite soon.
He is big into Model train collecting as I see him at Local train shows,as well as Local car auctions at VOLO and Dana Mecuum ones too.It's still in his blood! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]