Yankee Ingenuity and the Alamo
It was back in the fall of 1963 that Bob Andrews took a flight from Boston to San Antonio to see for himself a brand-new type of business - the first self-service car wash in the nation.
He was impressed. Not so much by the rudimentary facility, but by the customers he saw lined up to wash their cars. It was like visiting the besieged Alamo on March 6,1836, the day the garrison fell to Mexican soldiers in the Texan war for independence.
Returning home, he set out to build the first self-service car wash in New England. With characteristic chutzpah and Yankee ingenuity, he chose a site in central Salem next to a Burger Chief on North Street; a cross-marketing coup for the hungry car wash customer! It took only a week to get his building permit. He started building the next.
Lessons from the Apple Orchard
By the spring of 1964, HMA. was open for business - a six-bay self-service car wash beneath a sheet metal structure. Not the most elegant architecture on the street, but functional...at least most of the time. The water pumps were a Rube Goldberg-affair adapted for use from spraying apple orchards. All told, the facility cost him $28,000 (aahhh, the good old days)!
Customers paid 25¢ for a five-minute car wash (soap included). They came to HMA. in droves. And nearly drove Bob out of business. The pumps couldn't handle the pressure. The water lines froze in winter. The business was a boon to Burger Chief, but Bob was spending 16-hour days, seven days a week, repairing hoses, pumps and meters, and refunding money to under-served customers. He felt like he was beseiged at the Alamo!
To makes ends meet, he opened a "custom car detailing" service in 1965. Now his customers had a choice: to wash their own cars or leave them with HMA. to be professionally cleaned inside and out. Two years later, he installed two spanking, new automatic car washes, assuming that the rapid, steady growth in his "custom detailing" business presaged a trend away from "self service." He was wrong. He had forgotten the lessons from the apple orchard - it takes time (and patience) for seeds to bear fruit.
From Sheet Metal to Architectural Digest
By the middle 1970s, it had become abundantly clear that customers preferred the "self-service" over the automatic car wash. Now Bob needed to renovate and expand. The Burger Chief next door had closed (so much for wash 'n eat!) and he set out to rebuild what is today the largest retail Detail Center and Self-Service Car Wash in all of New England.
But this time it took over a year to obtain the necessary building permits. And well over a half-million dollars. When the new facilities were complete, they looked fit for the pages of Architectural Digest. The six-bay sheet metal structure was gone, replaced by 10 new self-service car wash bays (with four new ones added over the last decade) - all in finely appointed red brick. A new, renovated Car Detail Center and HMA. offices were built on the site of the Burger Chief. And state-of-the-art equipment (including new water lines and pumps!) were installed.
Today, HMA. Care Care Services offers its customers top-of-the-line quality service and the best-maintained facilities for automotive detailing and self-service car wash in New England. From out of the Alamo and through the apple orchard into the pages of architectural history - not a bad beginning!
