Photo from the Border Cities Star -Saturday, April 27, 1929
The new plant of Spee-Dee Auto Wash Limited, on Langlois avenue at Wyandotte street, which is equipped and staffed to give a complete car wash in nine minutes, and is also authorized Simoniz and Alemite service station.
I wish I could get a 9 minute car wash for a $1.25. 
Today that won’t even begin to cover your Enwin sewer surcharges. Times sure have changed.
I’m not sure exactly where this was at Langlois & Wyandotte. However there is still a car was on Langlois, just south of Wyandotte. I wonder if this was on the same site?
The car wash on Langlois is still called “Spee-Dee Auto Wash”.
A quick search on Google shows that it was founded in 1988? I don’t know if it’s the same building or not. I’m curious to see if it’s the same building, and what the story is on this…
That sounds like a lot for some reasonn. In 1929, I could buy a Ford Model A open cab pickup for $445. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1920-1929-ford-trucks5.htm Today, a compact Ford Ranger pickup is about $20,000. That’s about a 45X increase, so the same car wash today would be about $56 without a waxing. I think I’d just wash it myself, or if I had money, I’d have the gardener give it a rinse. But, then again, that is a very elegant building to have a car washed in.
At measuringworth.com you can see a multitude of values for that 1929 $1.25 — here is the data for that same dollar in 2007.
$15.13 using the Consumer Price Index
$12.49 using the GDP deflator
$30.79 using the value of consumer bundle *
$47.42 using the unskilled wage *
$67.39 using the nominal GDP per capita
$167.00 using the relative share of GDP
Per that website, the nominal GDP (or the approximate financial impact to the buyer in 2007 dollars) is the best comparison. That said, the carwash was worth $67.39 in 2007 dollars! HOLY COW! That wasn’t even including the tip!
I was living in the area in 1988, when the building mysteriously burst into flames in the wee small hours of the morning. The Meretzsky’s building, in the same block, also burned in the middle of the night that same year.
According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, $1.25 in 1929 = $15.30 in 2008. That’s not a bad deal depending on the level of service. It’s not hard to spend $25 on a full service ‘deluxe’ car wash these days, with interior vacuum and all the trimmings. And back then one can only assume all those employees you see in the pic attended to every square inch. As to the 1988 date, lots of legacy businesses were purchased and/or incorporated over the years, and I’m guessing that’s what the 1988 date refers to.
So it would appear the building was around untill 1988, and rebuilt following a fire.
Regardless, this is a local business that is ready to celebrate 80 years in business. I’m willing to bet that this is one of the oldest businesses in the city that is related to the automotive business. There aren’t any dealerships this old, certainly no other car washes…
I disagree that it is the same building. Look where the building in the photo is situated. It is right up close to the street in front of the sidewalk. Today the 7-11would sit on that site with the car wash behind it. Nonetheless, $15.00 for a hand wash is a good deal today.
The car was due to be cleaned anyway, so I dropped by Spee-Dee this a.m. Talked with the owner, Greg, who confirmed that the original 1929 building suffered a fire when the Meretzky’s (which was where 7-11 is today) was arsoned. Spee-Dee was re-built in 1980 on the same footprint as the original building. The current owner has been there since 1988. On the by and by, they do a great job there. Deluxe in-and-out service – with tax – came to $17.00
Also, the mural of hood ornaments on the wall facing Wyandotte was a BIA project, tying in the car wash business with Wyandotte BIA’s multicultural theme. Hood ornaments from makers around the world – including Russia – are featured.
It’s not $15 John. I’m reminded of Bernard Shaw who once said, “There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
If we use those figures, the cheapest Ford pickup would be $5,446.00 The average Canadian salary was about $1,400 back then. Using those figures, the average Canadian salary would be $17,136 today. The Ottawa business journal says it’s $38,010 http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/287874995129568.php People spend relative to their wage. $15 is ridiculous!
David, the Bank of Canada does not use just one or two unscientific criteria to determine inflation, as you have done here (first with the price of a pickup truck in a How Stuff Works article and again with a CEO’s wage in a magazine article).
I’m not talking about inflation, I’m talking about people spending relative to their salaries. If these two figures were readily available from a government website in a google search, I would quote them and I’m sure they’d be very similar.
John, thanks for investigating, and being our on the street reporter. I’m glad you check them out. Next time I’m due for a wash, I’ll have to head over and check it out. After all to be in business for 79 years, you must be doing something right!
– David, like it or not, that’s how things are calculated in today’s dollars. The prices of things relative to your salary have always fluctuated.
Also – Just looking over the Bank of Canada inflation calculator figues, $1.25 in 1929 = $15.30 in 2008.
$15.30 + PST & GST = $17.29, John reports that he spent $17.00 taxes inc. So, their prices are actually below the inflation rate, and have kept par over the last eight decades.
Amazing.
I just remember my grandfather using that car wash, when I was with him a couple of times back in the mid fifties, I thought it a neat place then. Can’t tell you much than that about it. Thanks for posting it Andrew!
I know I may be dating myself but as kids we would go over to that car wash- they had a window where clients could watch the cars being washed along the line- it was a very cool place…
Gee Walkerpub, you really are a geezer! : )
Now be nice; one day you’ll be in your 40s too!
I took a weekend job there back in 1962 when I was in High School. I was back there a few months ago and it looked exactly the same as it did then. So, as John pointed out, it was definitely built on the same footprint. One difference is that it is more automated now, There was one area we called “the pits”. There was a trench two people worked in with power hot water hoses to steam clean the tires and wheel wells. There were also troughs of hot soapy water used to hand clean (with the appropriate gloves) the tires and rocker panels of the vehicle after you finished with your “steam guns”. There were mornings there in Winter when you had to break the ice in the troughs. Oh yeah! You didn’t get an hourly rate. You got a percentage of the business done that day. Good days, good pay. Bad rainy or snowy days you could go home with little or nothing.
One more thing. If you go – in the area on the other side of the line your vehicle is on, there used to be another ‘line’- the truck line. The track must have been cemented over. This was for larger vehicles such as bread and milk trucks.
For the life of me, except for the items I’ve mentioned, I can see no difference from 1962.
The outside of the building didn’t look anything like the 1929 photo back in ’62 but he price of a car wash wasn’t all that much more.
WalkerPub, if your from my era, you may have seen me in the pits!
A Postscript,
When I said that the building I knew back in ’62 didn’t resemble the pic from 1929, further jogging of a 46 year old memory yields different results. When I was back a few months ago the building was yellow brick, whereas I remember a red brick building. So, it may very well be the same building but the “Complete Lubricating” section was, to my knowledge no longer associated with Speedy.The surname of the fellow who owned it back then was Parr.
This has got bo the most in depth conversation about a car wash I’ve ever seen! You guys are awesome.
And there’s even more to the Spedee story as My family home was right next door to Greg, my son and he were playmates so that makes me really old. And what’s that got to do with carwashes?
Here’s the newspaper article covering the blaze in 1979.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QVU_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=mVIMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1554,2431254&dq=fire+station+langlois+avenue&hl=en