In 2009 Strandquist Chrysler Plymouth lost their license with Chrysler like 862 other dealerships. The dealership was located in downtown Rockford, Illinois where all the other major dealerships were located for decades. Jack Strandquist started the dealership in 1944 after he came back from his 35th bombing mission in WWII and his dad had a used car dealership across the street from this building, which was finished in 1921 hoping to be a Dodge dealership, but with the death of the Dodge brothers it never opened as a Dodge dealership. There is very little history of what it was between 1921 and 1944 until the Strandquists leased it before purchasing it when they acquired a DeSoto franchise. There was a separate Chrysler dealership and also a Plymouth dealership nearby and eventually they acquired both and became a Chrysler/Plymouth dealer until 2009. They tried to be a used car dealer but that didn't work, then Jack died of a broken heart 6 months later and the dealership was closed and liquidated. At the time I worked with a restoration company in Machesney Park just north of Rockford in 2010 when we saw the building was for sale, so my boss purchased the building and we moved Nostalgia Lane there and became Mr. Norms Garage as my boss had bought into the Mr. Norm and Sox and Martin names. We moved our dyno there and expanded our line of supercharged Challengers and building wild Mustangs and Camaros. By the mid 2010's Chrysler was starting to build their own supercharged Challengers and that was the writing on the wall for us. The manager quit and went with his own dyno place and the building became a regular auto mechanic shop and we even got the contract to maintain the Rockford police cars! That all ended in 2017 and my old boss asked me to manage the building while he looked for a buyer. In late 2017 he asked me to meet me at the building and offered it to me and he would hold the mortgage with no strings attached, so I went for it. I had plans on starting my own restoration shop but one thing led to another, and Covid happened, so it never came to fruition. I put together a Mr. Norms collection and used the cool showroom to showcase some of those vehicles for a few years, and held swap meets there. The writing on the wall came last year that it was never going to happen and the taxes were killing me, so I made the decision to shut it down and sell it. That day came today as it is now in the hands of the new owners. I had 80 cars in there and over 250,000 parts, so it has been a crazy few months trying to sell some, move out the stored cars, and the museum cars plus trying to figure out what to do with all the parts! The new owner said he didn't need the upper floor for a while, and since it has a drive-up ramp, I took all the cars and parts I could fit up there and left parts cars there, I will still have it for another 6 months while I go through everything and decide what I will keep. I want to thank my friends and acquaintances for helping me over the years and this crazy last month of moving crap around for the final time! Look for a lot more parts for sale ads from me over the next few months! And thanks to all the people who came to my swap meets, met a lot of cool people!