Here’s Dixon’s Motors Ltd in 1921. It was built in 1917, when it cost $7,000 to build. Copp Brothers both designed and built the structure, which the building permit says was for F T Anderson. We suspect that might be F T Andrews, who developed a number of other buildings on Granville Street (including another garage at Pacific), and lived nearby in the Palms Hotel, that he also owned. As with many other Downtown buildings that we’ve looked at, this was part of the city’s motoring concentration. As well as a group of businesses on Georgia, and on Burrard, there were several in this area of Granville. We saw another image of this building in an earlier post.
Dixon Motors Ltd were a Ford dealership offering the usual range of service, parts accessories and tires. This was a new company, managed by L A Dixon. They temporarily occupied premises on Howe Street. The Daily World, in reporting the move, noted the benefits of their new location being on a corner: “The frontage on Granville Street will be used for a spacious showroom and office. The entrance to the garage and service department will be from Drake Street, so that there will be no congestion of traffic on a crowded thoroughfare like Granville Street, and the danger of backing – out from the garage into street cars or jitneys will be eliminated.” We didn’t successfully identify F T Anderson – there were several possible candidates in the city at that time.
In 1925 Dixon’s were still in business, and Mutch’s tire store was at 1275 Granville, a building developed by Reinhart Hoffmeister. He also built the building next door for his electrical contracting business in 1912; (behind the car in this 1935 picture that we first posted in 2012). The 
Mutch Tire Co had moved next door, offering Goodrich Tires supplied by the B F Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio (the B F stating for the founder, Benjamin Franklin Goodrich). The company started life in Hastings-on-Hudson in New York, but Akron paid Dr. Goodrich to relocate his business, no doubt to the eternal relief of Hastings-on-Hudson.
By the late 1920s the dealership had been taken over by Fordyce Motors, and the dealership switched briefly to being a Chrysler dealership. Fordyce moved to new premises on Burrard in the early 1930s, when we assume Mutch’s tire company moved next door. Their former premises remained vacant, but a year later Turnbull & Usher, auctioneers moved in, although Barnard Bevan (also an auctioneer) had his name on the façade. A year after that Bevan had moved a block north, and the Crescent Furniture Co. moved in. Tenants in the smaller retail unit changed many times until the mid 1940s, when Julius Shore Mail Order House, an upholstery dealer moved in, Mutch Tires stayed on. They were still here in 1950, but by 1955 had become BC Tire and household appliances, with a piano store next door at 1275 Granville.
Image sources: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-4806 and Trans N13
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Changing Vancouver 