March 2017 | Business View Magazine

68 69 The NADA Story Story The Dealers and their association BY JOE PHILLIPS AND PETER CRAIG N ADA was born in 1917 when a group of dealers set out to change the way Congress viewed automobiles. Thirty dealers from state and local associations went to Wash- ington and set up base at the Willard Hotel. By convinc- ing Congress that cars weren’t luxuries as they had been classified, but were vital to the economy, the group prevented total factory conversion to wartime work and succeeded in reducing a proposed 5 percent luxury tax to 3 percent. These businessmen realized that the nation’s 15,000 dealers needed continuing representation in Washington. Two months lat- er—on July 17 and 18—130 dealers met in Chicago to elect officers. Graphics and story reprinted fromwww.nada.org/NADAstory.