John Brasher was only 14 when his grandfather and family business patriarch — who shared his first name, but went by Frank — passed away in 1986.

But his grandfather’s reputation in the business provided more than a wealth of stories for John Brasher, who shared a few of these with Auto Remarketing last month, just after ADESA agreed to purchase the family’s eight auctions.

Unable to serve in World War II because of eye damage from a car accident, Frank Brasher — whose father ran a sheep ranch and did carpentry on the side — moved from his native southern Utah to Salt Lake City and opened up a barber shop.

The shop was about 10 to 15 feet wide and 20 to 30 feet long, John Brasher estimated. At the back was a curtain, and behind it was a cot, hot plate and a sink. That’s where Frank Brasher lived.

Then the war ended, and auto manufacturing eventually ramped back up. That’s when a customer at the barber shop helped spur a business idea.  

“He had a car dealer who was his customer,” said John Brasher. “He was cutting his hair one day, and this car dealer said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot of traffic here. Why don’t I give you this car? You put a for-sale sign on it in front of your barber shop, and if you sell it, I’ll pay you a commission.’

“And so, Grandpa did that and he got the commission, and he said, ‘Hey, this commission’s pretty good. This is like two months of haircuts. That’s a pretty good deal,’” John Brasher said.

That led to more of the same and, eventually, Frank Brasher jumping into the auto business.

Brasher got into RV sales and, his grandson says, claimed he had the first buy-here, pay-here business west of the Mississippi River

“And I never heard anyone to refute him, so I’m going to claim that it’s true,” John Brasher said with a slight laugh.

But Frank Brasher’s real passion was wholesaling cars, his grandson said, because of the quick turn.

By the late 1940s, John Brasher said, auto auctions began hitting the scene. 

Frank Brasher would attend the sales, and started his own auction in 1949.

The Brasher’s family, and the multiple generations that have followed in his footsteps, have expanded the business throughout the Western U.S.

The group currently sells about 190,000 a year, said Jim Hallett —chairman and chief executive officer at KAR Auction Services, parent company to ADESA — in his company's latest quarterly earnings call.

Some six-plus decades after the family entered the auction business, the legacy will stay in place. The Brasher's auction locations will maintain their leadership.  The move to sell was designed to help counter some of the logistical challenges of 10 shareholders transitioning to fourth-generation ownership, as the company describes in this letter.

“We’re all staying on,” John Brasher said. “We didn’t sell it because we wanted to get out of the business. We sold it to save the family dynamic, and to preserve our family relations. We’re staying on. This is our business. We’re not that old, and we love it. It’s our life.”