Text by Chris, a Presque Isle Middle School student
Images from the Presque Isle Historical Society by Carroll's Auto Sales
Hello, my name is Mac and I started working for Carroll’s Auto Sales in Presque Isle, Maine fifty years ago down where JP Cash Market is now located. Back then, Frank (Skippy), who owned Carroll’s Auto Sales, sold used cars. Skippy bought the Chevy franchise from Etscovitz in 1961. Skippy moved to the Carroll’s Auto Sales current location at 280 Main Street in 1963. After the move we sold all General Motors cars except Pontiac.
I started working as a clean-up boy part time. My other job I worked was as a dairy boy. I would go to work at four in the morning for the dairy farm. I would get done at eleven and work for Carroll’s until five at night. Sometimes after supper, I would go to Bangor to get a used car from Avis rental and not get back until twelve. One time my boss Skippy needed us to go get a car in Bangor. At the time we had a Cadillac limousine on the lot, and we decided to use that to tow the new car back. When my boss found out what we took down there to get the car, he was really mad at us. After I stopped working for the dairy farm, I worked cleaning cars and as a grease monkey. Also at night I would go down to Carroll’s and under-coat cars to keep them from rusting.
Back then an average truck cost about $1,700 dollars. One time the potato service bought about 25 farm trucks at once and they were all red and white. Those trucks cost about $1,700 each so we made a lot of money that day! It took three carrier trucks to bring all of the farm trucks to Presque Isle. The average car cost about$2,500 dollars. Most cars back then were standard shift and had no radio. In fact, cars were so cheap back then that people would buy a new car about every 1 to 2 years and we would sell around a total of 800 cars every year.
My boss would sometimes have me be his dad’s chauffeur and drive him wherever he wanted to go. Like one time, Skippy told me to go get his dad who was in the Bangor hospital and bring him home. James, Skippy’s father, wanted to go see his son in Waterville though, so when we started off from the hospital I started coming this way (north) and when James saw the sign for Old Town he said, “This isn’t the way to Waterville.
” I said, “Well I’m not going to Waterville.” “Skippy didn’t tell me to go to Waterville.” You see folks, Skippy was my boss and I did what he said.
Sometimes Skippy’s dad James would get a taxi from the Van Buren nursing home and stop here (Carroll’s Auto Sales) to get money from Skippy to pay for the taxi. So then Skippy would call me if I wasn’t there and say, “Would you give James a ride back?” And so I’d come down, get him and bring him back to the nursing home in Van Buren.
During World War II, General Motors was making just enough cars to stay in business because they were making tanks to help the war effort. The only colors in cars they made during the war were black and brown unlike the cars of today. The reason they made dark colors is so that airplanes could not spot the cars.
Back then there were a lot more different car lines than there are today. One includes the Dinah Pinard. The Pinard was different from other cars because of how it sat so low to the ground. If you were going down a rough road, you could pull a lever inside the car which raised the whole car body higher off the ground. Another old car that’s not in business today is the Citroen. The Citroen was the first foreign made car to be sold in Aroostook County. Citroens came from France so they had to be shipped overseas. The Citroens were very small. I remember one time one of the guys I worked with parked one on the sidewalk of Main Street. When they got here they had a protective film around them to keep the seawater from damaging the paint. This film was so hard to get off it was unbelievable.
Other car lines that don’t exist today were Nashes, Studebakers, and Hudsons. One problem they had with cars in the 1970s is that the windshields and leather seats would crack and break. This would happen in Aroostook County because of the temperatures changing from cold to hot so drastically. Because of this, people would have to get new seats about every year.