Business

Asheville Highway used car lot gets another new chapter

Emory, Kristen, Carter and Chris Freeman — third and fourth generation car sellers — will open Coleman Freeman Auto Sales at 1111 Asheville Highway on Monday after moving across the highway.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 11, 2025

The concrete block building at the corner of Asheville Highway and Oakland Street has been a car business, in one way or the other, for 63 years.

The 2,800-square-foot building with the address that's easy to remember — 1111 Asheville Highway — was built as a gas station in 1962 and operated after that as a used car lot under at least five different owners. It's about to change names again.

Chris Freeman, the third generation owner of Coleman Freeman Auto Sales, is moving from his location caddy-cornered across Asheville Highway to the 1111 Asheville Highway. The Freeman family already owned the half-acre lot. Chris's father, Cliff, who died on Christmas Eve of 2023, bought it in 1984. Chris's grandfather, Coleman, founded the car dealership. (Chris sold the 1216 Asheville Highway property parcel beside Walgreen's to Mike Hodges, owner of Boondocks campers, utility sheds and truck covers of Etowah.)

On Thursday, Chris's wife, Kristen, was using a handtruck to steer a filing cabinet out of the car dealership's office to make way for a flooring contractor. The Freemans have also stripped off a metal facade installed decades ago, revealing the original car lot's name and pitch. C&P Motor Co., offering "Clean Used Cars," invited the public to "Look At Our Great Buys" and "Compare Quality."

Donnie Jones, who owns the car detailing business on the same lot, at the Fleming Street corner, said C&P stood for Clark and Phillips. After C&P, a series of dealers sold used cars there: Frankie Sutton, Donnie's brother, Gary; Donnie's other brother, Chat; and Cecil Pryor, who bought the dealership after Chat died tragically in October 2012 at age 63.  

Pryor has moved a few miles up the road toward Fletcher, to the 4801 Asheville Highway building owned by Pressley Automotive. 

"It's a little bit off the beaten path from being right in the middle of town but this is a nice location and it's a nice modern building," he said. When Pryor found out that Pressley wanted to downsize and move to a smaller building behind his main one, "it was great timing for me because we didn't have anywhere to go. It' a very interesting place. I may end up trying to buy it."

The excavation of the original car dealership signage from the 1960s and the Freemans' move to the car lot seemed to put everyone in a nostalgic mood.

Donnie Jones's first job in the building that now houses his shop was not detailing cars. It was when he worked for Buster Livingston and his wife at their convenience store in 1970 after school. "The first thing I had to do was walk their dogs," he said. Then Buster and his wife would go home, leaving Donnie to sell beer, soda pop and sundries until closing. He was 14.

Cecil, too, recalled the early commerce there.

"I remember an old gas station years ago," he said. "There's still a concrete pad (for gas pumps) in front of that building."

Chris and Kristen — Chris & Kris for short — were chatting about everything they needed to get done over the next three days in order to open for business on Monday when the fourth generation drove up — daughter Emory and son Carter. If they're not washing cars, the kids are doing whatever else needs to be done for the good of the order. Family motto? "If you're eating, you're working," Kristen says.