We are both pleased to provide our perspective about the 100th anniversary of the National Automobile Dealers Association and offer our hearty congratulations on this impressive achievement.
Very few trade associations enjoy the respect accorded to NADA. This respect has been earned through decades of constructive, effective engagement in the public policy arena. In the many years of working on matters of mutual concern with the franchised dealers in Michigan, the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association, the Detroit Automobile Dealers Association and NADA in Washington, we have seen the nation's auto retailers respond to many tough challenges.
But through good times and tough times alike, NADA's members and staff have provided a perspective critically important to analyzing national issues.
Contrary to popular belief, neither of us was serving in Congress when NADA was formed 100 years ago, so we had to consult the history books to discern the original mission of NADA's founders and their enduring legacy. In the face of a federal threat to impose a luxury tax on all automobiles, a group of dealers banded together in 1917 to tell a counternarrative. They prevailed then, and now -- through the lens of history -- we can see that they were prescient. Henry Ford's unwavering vision of providing affordable transportation for working men and women across the country has been realized.