Back in 1974 when I was a service rep for Chrysler Corp, I called on a small Dodge dealer in the small town of Alexis, IL. He sold around 18 cars, 35 pickup, and another 15-20 medium and large sized trucks. He also lived on a farm about 3 miles out of town where he leased the farmland to two neighboring farmers. Shortly after starting to call on him, he said come in the morning so we can go out to his farm for lunch. I did that and after lunch he wanted to show me around his farm. It was a nice day in April, and when we rounded the corner oh his "big barn", my jaw dropped. Sitting there nose to the barn were at least a two dozen Dodge cars of all different from 1966 to 1972. The dealer paid cash for all of his vehicles when Chrysler shipped them, so he had no bank financing on them, and Chrysler had their money. He also had a '70 Dodge W200 pickup siting there (that he retailed 3 months later, and I had to verify that yes indeed the vehicle was brand new and authorized the replacement of things like all of the fluids,weatherstrips, rusted brake calipers, pads, and rear wheel shoes and drums). I asked if I could look closer at each one, and said sure. The location of the barn was suck that the vehicles were all parked on the northeast side, pretty much out of the sun so fading of the paint and trim was almost non-existent. One thing that did fade were the Monroney labels attached to the left side driver's window, but you could somewhat make them out. I asked why he had these vehicles still there and he said he ordered them as a favor to the local sales district manager, or for a prospective customer that changed their mind. Looking at how these were equipped, the were somewhat odd balls which explains why he never sold them. But still, I was just amazed he had them sitting there waiting to "find a butt to sit in the driver's seat" for each one.

I changed districts I June of 1974, and found out that the dealer died suddenly (at 84) in September. I always wondered what happened to those vehicles as the all had between 7 and 21 miles on them.