Memoirs of a Car Salesman

[Mike Whitty]

When I first started selling cars in 1977, I was stationed in West Germany, working for the British Army and making a little extra cash on the side. I realised very quickly, that moving motor cars was a lot more fun and rewarding than spending my time in a tent in the middle of some wet and cold forest, with huge Chieftain tanks rumbling towards me in the middle of the night. Thats when my life changed forever.

I came back home to England in the late summer of 1978 and was offered a job as a junior sales administrative clerk; A fancy name for someones assistant. My assigned Salesperson was a chap called Lon Ham, a retired World War Two Spitfire pilot, who had flown in the Battle of Britain. Well, this chap was ice cold. He told me what to expect when it came to helping customers buy these used Talbot automobiles, which were essentially, quite nice French cars. we also had Hillmans and Rootes vehicles. Enough said, they were complete pieces of ....You can figure it out for yourself! I learned a lot from Lon in the short time i was there, especially how to clean his cars for delivery! Not wanting to be a hired detailer, I wanted to grow and started looking for better opportunities.

I had been there for six months, earning about three hundred pounds a month, which in 1978 was an ok living for a young chap that had grown up with nothing, when I came accross a gentleman in the beautiful city of Bath, that was a managing Director for a Volkswagen dealer in the City. He offered me a job selling new VW and Audi cars, so off i went, now feeling that I was a professional, armed with enough information to be dangerous! Thing is though, most customers, "Punters" as we referred to them, had less knowledge than we did so it made me feel like I was a pretty smart chap.

These two years spent in the car game in England were enough to make me now understand why selling was like a drug addiction. You could greet People with a warm smile, offer them a nice cup of tea and then convince them why they were making a fantastic decision. I met so many People from all walks of life, but my funniest early experience came in the summer of 1980.

I had a very old but distinguished lady come in to test drive a new Golf GTI. I looked at her in complete shock, wondering, why on earth does she want to buy a GTI? Well I let her test drive the car and away we went, all over the winding streets of Bath, a 2000 year old Roman town, with hills and windy roads all over. I told her where to drive and she promptly told me to "Shut the F### up and proceeded to drive as if she was in the World rally championship, thus plowing both of us at one hell of a pace right into a cow field and hitting a cow! Even though i was unhurt, she looks at me and said, "I think this car has spongy brakes!" She gets out of the car and left me there. Long story short, she had just escaped from a local mental institution and had a fetish for fast cars. Try explaining that one to the Owner.

Well, I now had a little over two years in the business and was yearning to come to America, which was the place my long lost Father called home. Aahhhh selling cars in America.

Well his real name was Bill Herrera, a man from Des Moines Iowa who had spent his whole life in the sales business. Pappy was the type of Manager who was always strict, but incredibly fair and for those of you who have sold cars, this was actually a rare feat. Too often Sales Managers were great Salespeople but lacked leadership skills and would "shoot from the hip" so to speak.

Well, here I am, it's 1981 and I had just arrived in Stockton California. a place that even though had a certain beauty, was for the most a giant **** hole in the middle of the San Joaquin valley. Don't get me wrong, the city was actually pretty, but it was full of gangs and at the time had the highest murder rate per capita in the USA. I remember going to an ATM machine, which was a fairly new thing back then and trying to figure how to get money out, when a young black male asked me, "Excuse me, but do you want to get robbed?" Completely startled and not really sure what was happening, I replied, "Do you wnat ot get your teeth shoved down your throat mate?" Stupid? Yes. Did it work? Absolutely. He promptly said no and I said, " That's nice because I don't want to get robbed, so **** off and have a nice day!" To which he ran off and I managed to walk away, still none wiser as to how to get my money out.

My first ever car job was with a Company called Chase Chevrolet. I got a job as a new car salesman and was told to just get out there and 'Be a star!' Well a star I was not. Interest rates were 20 percent and we were selling amazing vehicles like the Chevy Luv pick up, the Citation and the Chevy Chevette, or better known as the Chevy Shove it! I went twenty eight days without selling one vehicle, but then, on the twenty eight, I sold the oldest Van conversion on the lot! It had been there over two years and of all the People, I managed to sell it! High fives were flying all around, the boss was ecstatic and once the customer left........ He fired me! That's when Pappy came onto the scene!

I was dazed and confused, but needed to get a job, so as I walked the auto row, I went into this old grey and miserable portable office and there he was; Crap happy Pappy! Looking at me he said, "Sell me this pen". I said what? To which he replied, if you can sell me this pen, you're hired! well, I got the job and the stories that could never be made up!

The owners son had always been a bit odd, we used to commonly refer to him as a 'member of the lucky sperm club'. Gary, (The son) was about as bright as the light in an English refrigerator straight out of the fifties! one of reasons we English drank warm beer! He would spend his days, trying to be his Fathers gleaming hope, all the while setting up golf balls on an astro turf mat and chipping them over the Dealership office into the High street, occasionally with the crashing sound of broken glass, as the result of hitting a car! I swear, this is not made up, movies were made as a result of this kind of dealer. When he wasn't chipping golf balls, he was getting high with the lot attendant; something that I actually had never been exposed to in my home Country. Pappy, knowing that he could not fire Gary, constantly would find ways to ditch him, or send him on dealer trades, which was when a Salesperson would go and get another vehicle that was sold from another dealer, kind of like a transfer.

After spending about six months with pappy, I had learned the power of persuasion! He would tell me, "You need the three C's junior, cash, credit application and comittment. Get me their shoes, their cash or their wallets! He would always counsel me and instruct me and the other guys on what to say and boy, if you didn't do it right, he would sure let you know! I remember one particular deal, when the customer was trading in an old Chevy Caprice diesel wagon! A truly remarkable piece of Generous motors engineering crap! As I brought the deal to Pappy, he gave me the proposal, which included his trade in as a negative number! He said, "Junior, when it comes to their trade, you tell them to write a check to Western Towing for twenty five dollars. When they jump up and ask you what you are thinking, you tell them it is to tow their piece of **** off the lot, because it is taking up space!" Well, I suppose you had to be there, but just as I gave them the great news, the husband jumps up absolutely twisted at the offer, demands to see the boss and a noise was coming from the closet behind the customers, who were approximately three feet from it. The wife said what on earth is that noise? I said.It came from the closet." To which she opened the closet and one of our Salespeople, whose name was Bill, was 'Test driving one of his hookers who worked the street by night! YES! Believe it or not, we made the deal, fired Bill for the night, only to bring him back the following morning because he was also the main supplier of pot for the owners Son and took the customer's trade in for I think about fifty bucks! Bloody hell, I thought, Pappy was able to turn the whole situation aroound and still close a sale! I figured that he was the guy that would teach me all that is not sacred in the auto industry. Fortunately I did grow and moved way beyond taking shoes as a deposit.

there were many occasions like the one I told that happened at this used car dealership. I specifically remember the characters, Bob, from Conway Arkansas and Harlie H. Huffstuttler from Chattanooga Tennesee, who had the most severe case of Manager itis I had ever seen, but was basically as dumb as a box of rocks, but funny. his Daddy, as he said had been a moonshine runner during the prohibition era and Harley claims that as a little boy, he had lost the nubbs of his right fingers, from a distillary that blew up. Henceforth, Harley was completely **** scared of loud bangs and on July 4th it was always a show, when Gary would throw an M80 firecracker into Haley's office, only to see him **** his pants and 'run for the hills!

These were fond memories of People who made the life of a young Car salesman both entertaining and exciting. Bob was a Vietnam veteran, who would take pride in seeing how many Vietnamese he could put into the trunk of a car and Pappy would s'spiff us' $5 for one and $25 for a Family. Certainly not appropriate in any circumstance, but times were different back then and these random acts of stupidity were acceptable. Boy am I glad we became more sensitive to these issues today.

Some of my last memories of Stockton were in 1983, when as a group of young lads, we all drove high powered Mustang 5.0's we would drag race through the streets of Stockton, often without regard for the safety of anyone, let alone ourselves. One night as I was driving home, I had noticed Pappy's Son, Jack, who had become and still is to this day my best Friend on the side of the road. To his right was an old Pacer that had been driven into the kitchen of an appartment building. It was my Brother and he had just arrived in America a month earlier. Being as they were all drunk, in one of these races, my brother attempted to overtake Jack, causing him to swerve into a young palm tree. He went over the tree and into the kitchen. Stopping right at the dinner table, without so much as displacing anything or anybody, he calmly opened the door and the Woman in the kitchen said," My God, if you were that hungry, you could have knocked at the front door!" Long story short, my Brother gets out pleads head injury, was not breathalized and was given a lift home by the local Police! Try that one now.

Well many things happened in Stockton and Pappy eventually quit and moved back to southern California. It was not too long before I eventually went south as well, only now with a Woman who would soon become my Wife!
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Written by Farler Knows Cars