Cass Motor Sales
The Cass Motor Sales Building is a three-story commercial structure completed in 1928 in Detroit that originally served as a showroom and service garage for Chrysler automobiles. The building showcases Art Deco design elements with black marble cladding on its facade, geometric patterns, and distinctive stepped arch windows on the second floor.
English immigrant Richard Cott founded the business in 1925 and had architect Charles N. Agree design this building, which was completed in 1928. After decades serving as a Chrysler showroom, it became a Cadillac dealership from 1965 and was converted in 2015 into a retail space for the Carhartt clothing brand.
The building carries the name of its founder Richard Cott, an English immigrant who started the car dealership in 1925. The Art Deco facade with black marble and geometric patterns reflects the elegance that auto dealers of the 1920s aimed to project to customers.
The building is located on Cass Avenue and is easy to reach on foot, especially for visitors exploring the neighborhood around Wayne State University. The distinctive entrance with its stepped arch is visible from the street, and the ground floor is now accessible as a retail space.
The building originally housed the Marmon Motor Company showroom, a manufacturer of high-performance automobiles featuring V16 engines, before switching to Chrysler. Marmon disappeared from the market during the Great Depression, and today only a handful of these prestigious cars remain in existence.
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