As I neared my 50th birthday, I had one thing for sure: a bad back. Don’t know how or where I got it, but it hurt all the time.
One day I was wandering around the back lot of the old Dallas Auto Auction out on Garland Street in Arlington. There, under a thick coat of mud and dust was a 10-year-old 1983 Jaguar XJS V12 Coupe. Wire wheels, skinny tires and all.
Just out of curiosity, I opened her up and decided to take a seat. AHHH! That Connolly leather bucket felt so good it made my backside laugh! It felt so very good I knew I had to have it. Went in the auction and paid $7000 for her. She was a piece of junk. But I didn’t care. I was in love.
This led to finding a distributor in Dallas, then getting into the newer Jags of all shapes and sizes. Today’s Jags are far more reliable but far less exotic. Jaguars pre 2000 were all about emotion, beauty, art. And Melton sold a lot of them, a whole lot!
The Jaguars were the beginning of Melton Gallery. The cars we handled at the Gallery in those days weren’t transportation. They were art!
Over the years, Melton Gallery’s sole purpose was to handle cars that made you feel good. Made us feel good! With my bad back, I tried on lots of seats over the years and those highline cars were the best. After a while, the best seats were in Volvos, so we sold Volvos. In those days, Mercedes-Benz seats were as hard as park benches and styling was, well, frumpy.
Today’s Mercedes are much more stylish. They are today’s art for the Gallery and I found the seat bucket that fits my bucket.
-by Robby Melton
