Ivan Barber is in his early 90s and is as sharp as a tack. Ivan was a farm boy who moved to the city and started out working in service stations and then worked four years as a police officer. He entered the car wash industry as an owner-operator in 1957 after owning and operating a service station in Toronto from 1955.
His value was soon felt as he began selling — and then inventing — car wash equipment and competing with the big boys of the day. In 1973, his company, which also sold to the service station industry in Canada, would gross more than $9 million in one year with a $1 million pretax profit.
I met Ivan in Las Vegas and we became fast friends. He was kind enough to provide WashIdeas.com with documentation on a variety of companies selling in the late 50s and early 60s. My favorite is a brochure for a company producing bumper hooks for pulling cars through conveyors.
When I called Ivan for the audio interview, it took place in front of one of his cars wash locations, while sitting in his car. The following is an excerpt from that interview.
Perry: What was it like to wash cars in the 1950s?
Ivan: Well, my original equipment was Rocket Equipment, out of Chicago. Probably the finest equipment at that time.
That was before wrap-around brushes. We had sitting troughs and we had two men in pits at the entrance, on each side of the car. They were in pits about three feet deep. They hooked the chains on the front of the car, washed the wheels and the bottom section of the car.
Then the car went through a three-brush unit — a top brush and two side brushes. From there, the car went into a sitting area where we had two mitter troughs, sitting down the car and then the rinse and blowers.
That is what we had until the wrap-around brushes came out. Maybe you could look up what year that was.
Perry: I show your patent for your wrap-around unit was filed in 1968 and granted in 1971. Were you motivated to invent the wrap-around because you saw deficiencies in the systems at that time or were you improving what existed?
Ivan: We had the third patent for wrap-around brushes. I guess you could say we were improving what was there. Up until this point, we had men washing the grille and the back of the car. This unit consisted of two brushes. Each washed half of the front of the car, the side of the car and the rear of the car.
Some of the older operators did not like the wrap-around brush when it first came out and felt it did not do a good enough job, but it was soon proven that at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the brush did a better job that the men.
Perry: What kind of material were you using? Was it cloth?
Ivan: Bristle. That was before the days of cloth.
[Later in the interview.]
Perry: How does a farm boy learn to sell $9 million worth of equipment in one year?
Ivan: Ha! My main competitor in Canada was Sherman, and I assume they were doing as well as we were. They [service station industry] were determined to get into the business and were ordering everything we could build. We weren’t having to sell anymore!
Perry: You’re almost 90, are you still active [in the industry]?
Ivan: I am sitting in my car at one of the washes right now.
Ivan Barber, now in his early 90s, entered the car wash industry as an owner-operator in 1957. In effort to improve the car was process, Barber became a successful inventor of car wash equipment.
Provided by Barber, pictured is a brochure for a company producing bumper hooks for pulling cars through conveyors, circa late 50s or early 60s.