Local Ford dealership opens new store as of March 1

Opening its doors at 409 Junction Avenue this past March 1, Courtesy Ford is up and running in Stanley’s East Business Park. While no ribbon cutting was held for the March 1 opening (there may be one at a later date), hospitality was nonetheless on hand, with Barb Eisold (wife of co-owner Scott Eisold) giving building tours. The other two co-owners of Courtesy Ford, meanwhile, are Dave Kluth and Dan Schultz, with several souvenir giveaways and a drawing to sign up for on the opening day of March 1. So what’s inside the new Courtesy Ford location on Junction Avenue? “Our service department is about the size of our whole old dealership,” Eisold said as she helped local newspaper staff navigate its way around the

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Shown left to right outside the doors March 8 to greet customers are dealership co-owners Scott Eisold, Dan Schultz, and Dave Kluth. Staff photo. NEW DEALERSHIP

FROM PAGE 1 new car dealership location composed as it is of four main departments: Service, Sales, Parts, and the Body Shop. The Service department is located in and around the former Shopko clothing section, while the Parts department is located in the building’s center. The Body Shop is located in the former department store’s east side, and Sales is located where the magazines, pharmacy and cash registers used to be. Shopko stores declared bankruptcy in January 2019, with the site in Stanley’s East Business Park then closing briefly and sitting vacant for a time, until Courtesy Ford of Thorp with new owners expressed interest in converting the old retail site and its parking lot into a car dealership, complete with a view of/from Highway 29 just to the south. First opening as a local business in Thorp, Wisconsin almost 36 years ago back in the late summer of 1984 (a souvenir paper from that time is framed at the new location), the new Courtesy Ford location has seven new vehicle lifts, along with some from its old store, Eisold said. Also included are an employee breakroom along wth a soda machine in the sales area, making sure employees and customers are taken care of. There’s more as well, though.

“The total air exchange in here is new every 15 minutes,” she added as well in reference to the building as a whole. With some additional space add-ons being made by Courtesy to the front and side of the old Shopko building, departments in the retail store turned car dealership are separated by new concrete block walls. Eisold said as part of the new location that Courtesy was also expanding its sales and service staff. So what if staff need a specific part or supply?

For that there’s the Parts department, well stocked among other needs with bottles of oil and aerosol cans, but also vehicle air filters. A secure back entry with chain link fence, meanwhile, allows for parts deliveries to be made after store hours while also controlling access to the larger building. As to the on-site body shop, this also has a good amount of space, though not quite the same square footage as the Service Department, taken on a rough estimate. Courtesy’s Service department is shaped like a rectangle and runs the length of the building from south to north, while the body shop area is decidedly more box shaped, though still large. But with Courtesy Ford now five miles down the road from its old location in Thorp, what’s to become of the old site? Purchased by Kwik Trip, Eisold shared of potential future developments in the town that bills itself as “A Place To Belong.” The site of Courtesy in Thorp then, may not sit empty for long.

The lot at Courtesy Ford as it appeared on opening day, March 1. With cars, trucks, and more, it’s worth a stop, located at 409 Junction Avenue off Highway X. Clockwise from top left below are the Sales floor, Service Center, Parts Department, and Body Shop. Staff photos.