From Model Ts to EVs, Gaudin Motor celebrates 100 years in business
What started as a fascination with the internal combustion engine and modifying Model T cars in California’s Central Valley turned into a century-old family business.
Las Vegas’ Gaudin Motor Company is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The family-owned business started as a Ford dealership in the small town of Escalon, California, in January 1922, when George Gaudin took an interest in single combustion engines, said Gary Ackerman, president of Gaudin Motor and Gaudin’s grandson. Decades of sales and services are credited to the standard set by the family patriarch, Ackerman said.
“We think about a COVID pandemic that we’ve all just been through — nobody in my generation had gone through anything like that,” Ackerman said in an interview this month. “The Great Recession was a bad hit to our economy, but it certainly was nothing like what we read about the Great Depression. That just tells me the grit my grandfather must have had as a businessperson.”
In the 1950s, George Gaudin wanted to move south so he purchased dealerships in Buena Park and Las Vegas. Ackerman’s father, Don, led the first store at Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart Avenue in 1955, then designed a new Ford dealership at Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards in 1963.
Don Ackerman, who died in 2012, ran the Las Vegas business through more expansions and moves, including a store on East Sahara Avenue, until he sold the business to his son in the mid 1990s.
Today, Gaudin Motor has three locations: Gaudin Ford and Gaudin Porsche of Las Vegas, both near Rainbow Boulevard and Interstate 215, and Ford Country on Gibson Road in Henderson.
Values, Las Vegas key to longevity
The company — and family — values set by George Gaudin came from those early years of business. When he first opened the Ford dealership in California farming communities, the area didn’t have media or marketing capabilities through radio or newspapers — and television ads weren’t yet an option. Instead, it was important to have good word-of-mouth recommendations.
“We’re in this digital culture today where people shop differently now,” Ackerman said. “They have the capability of doing research that they couldn’t do 70 years ago. So they have a lot more information available to them than they did when my grandfather was alive. But at the end of the day, they still have to buy a machine and the machine breaks it or it needs to be maintained. In order to do that, they have to have a relationship with somebody they trust.”
He also credits Las Vegas itself for the company’s long-term success. The small but growing population in the mid-20th century made it an ideal spot for local businesses to grow because so many people were “hyper loyal to the Las Vegas business culture,” he said.
That philosophy can be seen even through other competitors, Mark Hall-Patton, a local historian and former Clark County Museum administrator, said. Other well-known families, such as the Cashmans and Findlays, developed their dealership businesses in those early years and built loyalty from the growing population.
“You’re not looking at somewhere that’s going to be a stable population base,” Hall-Patton said. “You’re looking at it and saying,’This place is going to grow.’ You’re looking at other businesses that are going to bring new residents, not what’s going to bring money for the casinos, but what’s going to bring jobs here.”
Community involvement
The Ackermans also have a history of community philanthropy. Don Ackerman was a longtime trustee for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Foundation and the company supports various nonprofits. Perhaps most notable, though, is the family’s name on medical and supportive services center for autism and other developmental disabilities.
Gary Ackerman’s eldest son, Andrew, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was 10 years old, his father said. At the time in the early 1990s, there were no board-certified pediatric neurologists in the state and the family had to go to the UCLA Medical Center for that diagnosis.
When Nevada approved the UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine in 2015, Gary Ackerman was eager to get involved with developing a building dedicated to autism treatment. He developed a plan for a care, training and supportive center that opened in 2016 — a process he said only took about six months to coordinate.
“What we refer to now, looking backwards, is the vortex that happened and just started sucking the right people into the right place at the right time,” he said.
Now known as the Grant A Gift Foundation Ackerman Center, UNLV Medicine doctors see clients while Grant A Gift Autism Foundation manages the site located on Rancho Drive near Alta Drive.
Company future
A company celebration of the anniversary on March 12 was attended by Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, and two Ford family members, Henry III and Elena. Also at the party, Porsche Cars North America officials informed the company it can open a new sales and service center in Henderson.
While Gary Ackerman doubts he’ll be around for the 200-year celebration, he said he feels confident that it will remain a family company with George Gaudin’s values. His youngest son is a car salesman for another dealership to learn the career on his own — taking a lesson passed down from Gaudin to Don and Gary. Additionally, Gary Ackerman’s godson and his business partner’s son are general managers in the company. He expects one will buy the business when he’s ready to retire.
“We’re still very much a family affair,” he said. “I think it probably will be long after I’m gone. Nothing would make me happier at this stage in my life to see that happen.”
McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on Twitter.
