Frederick H. Lutz, 82, passed away Thursday, 24 Dec. 2020 at the MedStar Washington DC hospital after a month’s-long battle with heart failure.
Fred was born in 1938 in Meridian, Mississippi to Maxine and Jacob Lutz, now deceased.
Fred attended University of MD for a year before joining the Army. He served State side from 1962-64 and was honorably discharged after Reserve duty in 1968 as a SP4 E-4.
In Fred’s late teenage years, he owned a racehorse that won a few races. He did not ride the horse in races but was involved in its and another racehorse’s care and training.
In Fred’s late 20’s he raced motorcycles at Daytona Speedway and professionally raced on dirt flat and oval tracks until brakes were allowed. (That’s right, they use to race without brakes.) He raced a Montessa 250 cc “Scorpion” and a 175 cc Montessa dirt bike motorcycles. In 1969 he was class champion of the American Association of Motorcycle Road Racers.
Fred attended the Reisch World Wide College of Auctioneering, Inc. in 1975 and for several years did motorcycle auctions for Heyser Cycle Sales, as well as auctions for other people under the name of Eagle Auctioneering. Due to the auctioneering school designating its graduates as Colonels, Fred was Colonel Lutz.
Fred loved to sell. When he was a young man, he started out selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Later with his first wife, Margaret, he opened a store front to sell the Kirby vacuum cleaners.
About 1964 a friend, Tom Heyser, invited him to help sell Honda motorcycles in a shop (Heyser Cycle Sales in Laurel, MD) Tom was establishing. Fred asked Tom “What’s a Honda?” when he went to help him put a Honda scooter together. For a time, Fred was also co-owner of Heyser Cycles. In ensuing years, he was a salesman or managed other motorcycle shops in Virginia (Cycles, Inc., Coleman Power Sports, & a Yamaha dealer in Herndon, VA) with every brand but Harley.
When Fred met his second wife Bobbie in 1978, on the CB, he was co-owner of Carolina Home Remodeling in Waldorf, MD for several years. He rarely actually did the remodeling, much preferring to do the selling. His famous saying was that he “made his money with his mouth, not his hands”!
After he sold the remodeling business to his partner, he went back to selling motorcycles for several years. During that time, he also judged motorcycle shows and spoke at seminars for the VTS Region 8 Rally and at the first AMA Homecoming. He was a Yamaha “Learn to Ride” instructor before there were MSF courses. While at Cycles, Inc. he was interviewed by some Yamaha-Japan executives where he suggested they make their entry level bike a 250cc V-Twin. The next model year, Yamaha introduced the Route 66.
When he was selling motorcycles, he used his vacation time to travel with his wife Bobbie to various Goldwing or other rallies on the East Coast. He often won riding skill trophies at the rallies. One rally, Americade in Lake George, NY, selected him as their King in 1993, which involved a riding skills test and an interview. He was their 3rd designated King, as Americade had previously only had awarded a Queen to the honor.
About 1990 Fred moved on to selling cars, specifically Toyotas at Miller Toyota in Manassas and Warrenton Toyota for 26 years before he retired in 2016. Fred won many sales and customer satisfaction awards over those 26 years, including ’96 Salesman of the Year, #1 Customer Satisfaction Award for 1998, multiple Salesman of the Month, and Toyota Sales Society Silver, Gold, and Bronze awards for multiple years. Many people have commented that Fred was one of the few honest car salesmen they had ever met, and who actually cared about his customers.
After Fred’s official retirement, he discovered a ‘retirement job’ he could do out of his home garage by selling smaller golf carts called Cricket that do not need a trailer but are collapsible and put inside vehicles or on the back of an RV or truck. He enjoyed vendoring the Crickets at various RV and other shows. Fred was very excited that this summer he sold so many, despite COVID, that he was actually making a profit for the first time.
The motorcycle riding gradually gave way as he and his wife acquired more dogs and competed in numerous sports with them, earning multiple titles and winning many awards with them. A couple of the big wins were when Calvin won the Triathlon at the Whippet National Specialty in 2004, and Nigel went Best Altered in Show at the UKC 2010 Premier. One of the latest ones was December 2018 when Fred put an agility title on Whippet Roxie when Bobbie could not do it, pending her first knee replacement surgery. Over the years they had several Dobermans, one Greyhound, and multiple Whippets. They bred three litters of Whippets under the kennel name of Windryder. They just lost Tyler, the last of the first litter, this past May. He was a few months shy of 17 years old.
People have often described Fred as gentle, kindhearted, even tempered, rarely argumentative, honest to a fault, patient, always willing to help others, and a pushover when it came to his dogs.
Fred was a member of Chapter A-VA GWRRA, Life Member of GWRRA, Life Member of AMA, Mattaponi Kennel Club, the American Whippet Club, and was President of CHAMP (Coursing Hounds Association of the Mid-Potomac) lure coursing club. Fred was also a co-founder of that VA-Chapter A of the Goldwing Road Riders Association (GWRRA). In earlier years, he was a member of Virago Owners Group, VTS, Retreads, and Scoottours.
Fred is survived by his wife Bobbie of 41 years, his daughter Jennifer Lutz of Alexandria, VA from his first marriage, his brother Larry and Larry’s wife Judy of Rockville, MD, and his sister Ravel Gregory and her husband Mike of Cheverly, MD. He is also survived by nephews Jimmy and Sandy Lutz, Ed and Scott Turko, Christopher Seibel, and nieces Amber Seibel Reynolds and Carmella Seibel. He also leaves many cousins. Besides Fred’s parents, he is also preceded in death by his first wife Margaret Wilhelm.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to a local dog shelter of your choice or to Whippet Rescue and Placement (WRAP) at www.whippet-rescue.org.