Lehmer's Concord GMC: California Dealer Embraces History
In 1936 Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympics and you could buy a new Oldsmobile for $665. That's the year Erv Lehmer got the franchise from General Motors to sell New Oldsmobiles. They converted his father, Lew Lehmer's Golden West Service Station, into Lehmer's. Much has changed in the world since 1936, but the Lehmer family continues to sell GM vehicles in CONCORD.
In 1938 Lehmer's added the GMC truck franchise to the dealership and has been selling GMC trucks ever since.
Erv’s daughter Carolyn has been around the dealership since she was born. She worked there during the summers when she was still in high school and after college she started full-time. Carolyn says, “I worked in the office, because girls worked in the office in those days. But I became a dealer in 1987.” Today she runs the show at Lehmer's Concord GMC along with her husband Russ Anderson and their children Russ, Tammy and Darren.
Russ took a winding path into the car business. When he was 18 years old he joined the navy and became an engine man on submarines. He remembers, “I liked GM just because our submarine diesels were 1,600-horsepower GM diesels that were first built for World War II.” After leaving the sea he came back to CA and joined the fire department. He also met his future wife Carolyn at Mel’s Diner (made famous in the movie “American Graffiti”.) He would drive used cars from his father-in-law’s dealership to his firefighter job and he would often sell the car he was driving to an interested customer. Finally his boss told him to choose between firefighting and the car business, and Russ ended up as a salesman at Lehmer’s. Russ soon became general manager of Lehmer's and in 1971 opened his own GM dealership in nearby Walnut Creek, spending 21 years there before eventually returning to Lehmer’s.
Russ Anderson, Darren Anderson, and Tammy Freeman represent the next generation of the Lehmer Anderson family to take a leadership role. The three siblings have been involved in the business since the 1990's and now they run the day to day operations. As Managing General Partners, they are taking Lehmer's into the future. Adam Anderson and his cousin Luke Freeman work at Lehmer's as the 5th Generation family members!
Carolyn Lehmer Anderson says, “My father believed in American cars. Before the imports really got a foothold in our area he was offered the Honda franchise. He said, ‘I’m not going to sell foreign cars. We’re going to sell American cars.’ So that’s why we’ve stayed with American cars all the time.” She admits selling vehicles from U.S. brands is difficult today in the import-oriented Bay area, but she strongly believes in the vehicles she sells. “Our cars are better than those, the imports,” she says. Carolyn has seen a lot of changes over her years in the car business. “Our mechanics used to be the technicians under the hood working on the cars. Now our techs are all extremely computer savvy. Everything is computerized” Lehmer's Concord GMC is proud of its history. Photos depicting its nearly 75 years as a GM dealer hang on the wall above the CONCORD showroom floor and it’s not unusual to see one of Erv’s early trade-ins, such as a 1939 Oldsmobile, taking a center stage on the showroom floor to highlight the beautiful history of Lehmer's.