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Larkspur > Then and Now > Hil Probert's Showroom
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 1960 |
 2002 |
| The 1940 Packard from Hill Probert's antique car collection, with his new car showroom in the background. Now, of course, it's the main building in the Lark Creek shops complex. What is a "Toyopet?" you may ask. Today we call them Toyotas, and Hil Probert was the first dealer in the USA. Click here to see a shot I took of the one you see across the street, a 1959 Crown Custom. Probert opened in 1946 selling Kaisers and Frazers along with the cool little Henry J; after production on those stopped in 1954, he became a Desoto/Plymouth dealer for a few years. We lived across the street and up the hill on Arch Street, and he was always accomodating, or at the very least tolerant of me when I'd run down to the showroom to ogle the new cars or scarf up brochures. I was 9 in late 1955 when I wandered in there to snap a shot of the tail fins of a 1956 Plymouth. Click here to see it. Click here to see a shot of the showroom in 1958, taken from our dining room window as excavation began on the hillside right below our house. A few years later they built the extremely bland-looking apartment house that's there now. |
