We occasionally provide excerpts from The Great American Car Wash Story. Former ICA Executive Director Gus Trantham and veteran commercial writer John Beck wrote this book in 1994. It represents the most complete history we have found of the industry in North America. Enjoy.

CHAPTER 9: TAPPING THE POWER OF ENTREPRENEURISM
While W.J. Rosseau and Paul Maranian are the ones who launched and fanned the flames of car washing as a viable venture, there were certain characteristics about this business – at this stage – that made it particularly attractive to people who wanted to get involved in something with a future, now that the war had been successfully concluded. Something different! Something challenging! Something that could put to use all the energy they had been building up during the war!

A good example of entrepreneurial spirit is the story of another man who played a key role in the development of car washing: David Lippitt.

About the same time that Paul Hurwitz was getting started, Lippitt was attending the University of Southern California, working on his master’s degree in business administration. The subject of his thesis was the operation of a high-volume, low-price gasoline station in the Inglewood area near Los Angeles. Early one Saturday afternoon, a friend took him to a car wash located at 64th and Figuera streets in Los Angeles. When they arrived, the lot was full, and a long line of waiting cars spilled out into the street.

At first, they were irritated and almost drove away. But when Dave discovered how far back the end of the line extended, he was amazed. In his own words: “I was flabbergasted! All of these cars waiting to get washed!”

After a few seconds’ hesitation, they pulled up to the end of the line with, Lippitt muttering to himself, “I gotta see this!” And then, thinking back to the thesis he was working on about the volume sale of cheap gas, he grinned: “This should be better than just selling gas!”

As Lippitt tells it now, at that moment, although he didn’t realize it at the time, he was hooked because he couldn’t get the idea of operating a car wash out of his mind.

This was about 1 p.m., and after the car had been washed, Lippitt hung around, watching every operation as closely as he could, speaking to the manager, getting the name and address of the manufacturer (Minit-Man) and not leaving until the car wash closed for the day.

The next day, he wrote to Minit-Man for more information and proceeded to modify his thesis to include car washing, and it might be said that Lippitt has been the one and only man to get a master’s degree on the subject of car washing.

At this point, he made up his mind that car washing was going to be the subject of his employment, too, and paid a visit to his parents in San Diego to tell them of his plans. They pointed out that there were no car washes in San Diego, so why not locate his in his hometown? Lippitt agreed that this was a good idea.

Right after getting his degree, Lippitt set to work with his plans and ran into his first stumbling blocks. No one he spoke with thought a car wash would be a good venture: Local businesspeople, bankers, real estate people all shook their heads and held thumbs down.

Fortunately, Lippitt stuck to his guns and came up with enough money to build a Minit-Man. About this he says today: “My first Minit-Man was No. 120, which put me fairly well up front because there were about 500 sold. It wasn’t the greatest, but there was nothing else out there, and it caught the attention of investors and customers alike. We all did our own little things, working up improvements.

“One time, I read an article in a publication Robin King started about the use of a washer and dryer for towels, and then I wrote one on a washer/dryer combination idea, so Robin and I got together. It was then he arranged that get-together for car wash operators at the Del Prado Hotel in Mexico City that resulted in the start of the car wash association.”

This story conveys something of the attraction this new business held for people with the spirit of the entrepreneur.