Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

September 13, 2006, Front Page

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Gross Motors celebrates 50 years of cars and customers

By Mick Kuzjak

Cars, their styles and nearly everything else about them, may have come and gone over the years.  But some things in selling them never seem to change, according to brothers, Wayne and Jerry Gross, co-owners of Gross Motors, Inc., which last week marked its 50^th year of business.

“Customers still want to be treated with courtesy and get a good price,” said Wayne, citing a golden rule of car sales that Gross Motors has kept well polished through the years.

That was the philosophy their father, Clifford, started when he together with Dwayne Felser, partnered up on a brand-new car dealership five decades ago.

Gross Motors founder, Clifford Gross

(Contributed photo)

Fel-Gross Chevrolet opened its doors on September 6^th, 1956 at the intersection of West 6^th Street and Grand Avenue in downtown Neillsville where the parking lot of Associated Bank is now located.  The city’s new dealership for Chevy cars and trucks, along with Oldsmobile’s had a sales staff of two, including Clifford, and three mechanics, Felser among them, in the service department.

On September 6, 1956, Clifford Gross, and partner Dwayne Felser, opened Fel-Gross

Chevrolet at the intersection of W. 6^th Street and Grand Avenue in downtown Neillsville

(Contributed photo)

“I started getting in the way at nine,” Wayne recalls with a smile.  But before too long, Wayne now 59, was washing cars and as he grew older helped out with oil changes and lube jobs.

Jerry, 10 years younger, remembers riding his bike to check things out at the new family business from their nearby home on Clay Street.

The partnership ended when Felser moved to Texas in 1957, but the “Fel-Gross Chevrolet” name would stick around for a while.  Perhaps, Wayne explained half-kiddingly, that’s because there were so many “Fel-Gross” dealer name plates and stationery letterhead – no small items of expense to a fledgling car business in tough times – to be used up.

In 1966, Clifford Gross moved his dealership, its name changed to Gross Chevrolet-Olds, to its present location along U.S. Highway 10 on Neillsville south side.  The empty field was a place with room for the business, and its facilities, to grow.  And grow it did, adding a body shop in 1977, a reconditioning department for used vehicles and prep area for new cars in 1984 and expanding its service department by more than 50% in 1990.  Over the years, with the purchase of the adjacent House of Cheer Liquor store property, the sales lot was tripled in size.

The product line expanded, as well.  The growing dealership began selling Pontiac and Buick in 1978.  And with that came another new, and fitting, name – Gross Motors.

In 1993, looking to boost car sales during the traditionally slow time of year in February, Gross Motors, started the popular “Indoor Sale” at the nearby county fairgrounds.  “It’s worked out pretty well,” said Wayne.

In the last decade, Gross Motors has expanded well beyond its hometown base of Neillsville, buying and putting its’ name on the former Bauman Buick dealership in Marshfield in 1998, Rush Pontiac-Buick-GMC in Black River Falls in 2003 and, in July of this year, Ladsten Motors, a Chevrolet-Buick dealership in Blair.

“We had so many customers in Marshfield and Black River Falls, it was the natural thing to do,” said Wayne.

Gross Motors is now looking forward to the construction of a new 22,000-square-foot building at the intersection of Inter-state 94 and Highway 54 on the outskirts of Black River Falls.  Completion is expected sometime next year.

And that will have Gross Motors building on to its position as the largest General Motors dealers in the surrounding five-county area selling, at Neillsville alone, between 800 to 1,000 new and used vehicles a year.  Sales at all four locations approach 2,000 vehicles annually.

The business’s acknowledged founder, Clifford Gross would miss most of those milestones.  He died in 1976 of a heart attack at age 58.  But his widow has been along for what has been quite a ride for Gross Motors.  Alice, who was vice-president of the family car dealership until she retired in 1983, is now 86, and still maintains an active interest in the business.

Wayne, working as a Certified Public Accountant in Eau Claire, when his father died, came home to Neillsville to take over the day-to-day operations.  The next year, Jerry joined him in the family business as assistant service manager.  Today, Wayne, president of Gross Motors, Inc., oversees the sales department.  Jerry, the corporation’s vice-president, heads up the service area.

Both brothers agree that whatever success Gross Motors has enjoyed over the years comes from a reputation of treating the customer right.  That’s where Gross Motors’ employees – now numbering 80 in all – come in, they said.  “They are our biggest asset,” said Wayne.  The professionalism, and the care its employees take in selling, and servicing, cars and trucks means a lot to Gross Motors, Wayne and Jerry said.  “That’s the reason we’ve been successful,” said Jerry.

That keeps buyers coming back, said the brothers and they’ve appreciated the loyalty of their many customers over the years.

That’s why Wayne and Jerry Gross are hoping that those customers, as well as residents of the Neillsville community and beyond, will attend a 50^th anniversary celebration this Saturday, September 16^th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  The event commemorating five great decades of doing business will have a classic car show, a music DJ, games for kids and adults, along with free brats and hot dogs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Related Links:

Jim Schultz Retires from Gross Motors (10 Feb. 2010)