March 2017 | Business View Magazine

70 71 Milwaukee dealer George W. Browne was the first NADA president. To launch the association cost exactly $102.71, which covered mostly telegrams, telephone calls and postage. The early years The annual convention was an NADA fixture from the beginning. The association wanted its meetings to coincide with auto shows because of all the dealers attending. So, before it was six months old, NADA held its first annual meeting, with 138 delegates, during the Chicago Auto Show. St. Louis was chosen as the city for NADA headquarters. The first important national legislation spon- sored by NADA was the National Motor Vehicle Theft Law (the Dyer Act) in 1919, which made it a federal offense to steal a vehicle and take it across state lines. NADA also promoted uniform accounting methods among dealers and was active in seeking auto financing reforms. In 1922, NADA began to study used-car values as a service to members. A decade later those studies became the N.A.D.A. Official Used Car Guide, carrying the U.S. government’s endorse- ment as the nation’s authority on used-car prices. About 40,000 copies were printed and mailed to subscribers in December 1933. Inter- est in used-car values was high for two reasons. One, after debating for years how to handle trade-ins, dealers finally began applying trade- in values toward new-car down payments. Two, used cars outsold new cars. At the end of World War I, sales of used cars were about half as numerous as new-car sales. But from the 1920s through the 1950s, used-car sales consistently The NADA Story 1917 - The Founding Fathers of NADA exceeded franchised new-car sales. 1930s: The Depression years NADA almost didn’t survive the Great De- pression. The first four months of 1932 left the association—after expenses of $20,879—with a net income of $837. In May, NADA’s general manager told the board that, based on the re- newal record and members’ difficulty in paying dues, it would be “impossible to carry the asso- ciation beyond the first six months of the year without drastic changes.” The secretary was to find new quarters for the association at a cost not to exceed $50 per month. The board reduced activity to a mini- mum and for the rest of 1932 employed only a secretary-manager and a stenographer, who also handled bookkeeping. The general counsel, field staff and mailroom clerk were let go. But a year later, things were different. In Feb- ruary 1933, NADA had 2,200 members, most of whom were behind in their dues. But by early 1934, NADA had an active, paid-up membership of more than 20,000. By the end of the year, there were 30,000. The New Deal The turnaround was the result of the New Deal’s National Recovery Administration and the new Code of Fair Competition for the Mo- tor Vehicle Retailing Trade.When the mandate of industry-specific codes was announced, the nearly dissolved association went into a flurry of activity, developing a proposed code and vis- 1936 - Year the NADA conventionwas first held in New Orleans, at the Roosevelt Hotel.