In 1936 Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympics, you could buy a new Oldsmobile for $665 and Erv Lehmer's used car dealership in Concord, California got their franchise from General Motors to sell Oldsmobiles. Much has changed in the world since 1936, but the Lehmer family continues to sell GM vehicles in Concord.
Erv's daughter Carolyn has been around the dealership since she was born. She worked there during the summers when she was still in high school and after college she started full-time. Carolyn says, "I worked in the office, because girls worked in the office in those days. But I became a dealer in 1987." Today she runs the show at Lehmer's Concord Buick-GMC along with her husband Russ Anderson and their son Darren.
Russ took a winding path into the car business. When he was 18 years old he joined the navy and became an engine man on submarines. He remembers, "I liked GM just because our submarine diesels were 1,600-horsepower GM diesels that were first built for World War II." After leaving the sea he came back to California and joined the fire department.
He also met his future wife Carolyn at Mel’s Diner (made famous in the movie "American Graffiti".) He would drive used cars from his father-in-law's dealership to his firefighter job and he would often sell the car he was driving to an interested customer. Finally the chief told him to choose between firefighting and the car business, and Russ ended up as a salesman at Lehmer's.
