Mershon’s marks 30 years

Business makes dreams come true for Corvette lovers

SPRINGFIELD — The first time Dan Mershon owned a Corvette was nearly his last time.

A high school student at the time, Mershon immediately wrecked the car, and his parents told him to find something more sensible to drive.

“So I traded for a Volkswagen,” the owner of Mershon’s World of Cars said, laughing at the memory.

Fortunately for Mershon and the hundreds of Corvette owners who have purchased cars from him over the years, his father eventually helped him not only acquire another Corvette, but a few more to restore and sell.

This month Mershon’s World of Cars will celebrate its 30th year as a business that continues to make driving dreams come true for Corvette lovers as well for collectors of the most rare and expensive cars around the world.

Mershon’s father, Les, was a driver for International Harvester and, during the late 1970s, was also delivering used Corvettes from California to a man in Chicago who would restore and resell them for a profit.

When Dan Mershon learned how inexpensive Corvettes were in California, he asked his dad to bring him back a few. “I borrowed the money from my uncle to purchase them,” he said.

He cleaned up the cars and sold them at auctions while working full time at International Harvester with his dad. International wasn’t a good fit for him, so he left to work at a large Chevrolet dealership. Not long after that, he decided to branch out on his own.

“I was mowing the grass one day and just decided ‘next year, I want to get married and I want to open my own dealership,’” he said. In late 1980, at the age of 28, he proposed to his wife, Jan, and borrowed money from his uncle and father to rent a lot at 2141 E. Main St. His mother Janice kept the books.

Today, the couple’s son Shelby, 22, races vintage cars and works with his father at the dealership, now located at 201 E. North St. Their daughter, Danyel, 21, is in college.

With price ranges in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $200,000-plus, the dealership sells about 200 vehicles a year. Many of those are shipped oversees, thanks to both growing demand for the classic American cars and the weak dollar.

“I’m selling a lot of cars to Australia and the Netherlands right now,” he said. He was also sending about a dozen a month to man in Germany, who was likely selling them for profit. “That’s OK with me,” Mershon said.

After 30 years of connecting drivers with the cars of their dreams it’s no surprise that Mershon has been able to acquire his three favorites: A Ferrari Enzo —“They made 399 of them, and one more for the Pope” — a 1965 Shelby Cobra and a 1967 Ford GT Mach II race car.

Mershon credits his never- wavering love for cars, his late father’s advice to reinvest profits into the business and a willingness to be flexible for his business longevity.

“You have to be a chameleon when it comes to adjusting to what buyers want,” he said. “I’ve seen others who refused to change and they didn’t succeed.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0347 or kmori@coxohio.com.

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