![]() ![]() By contrast, the smaller Escort wasn’t all that great of a car, and that’s putting it mildly. Incidentally, that wasn’t true – full-sized trucks “saved the company” in the Eighties – but it was reflective of the esteem in which the Taurus was held by the public. The 1986 Taurus was what they call a “game-changer” for Ford, and it was widely considered to have “saved the company”. They’re outrageously profitable – the number-one profession of self-made millionaires in this country is “auto dealer” – and, as an aggregate group, they are also outrageously crooked, which means that manufacturers simultaneously envy their profit and weep for the damage they do to their brands.Ĭonsider the case of the “Taurus II”. Independent dealerships are the worst enemy of consumers and manufacturers. This is not the case in most countries, and if the manufacturers had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be the case here in America either. In many states, it’s not legal for a manufacturer to own a dealership in others, it’s merely discouraged, but it’s important to understand that the Toyota dealer is not Toyota the manufacturer. When you go to a Toyota dealership, you are not dealing with Toyota you are dealing with an independent business. I feel silly mentioning this at the beginning, but if the discussions on automotive forums are anything to go by, I’d better do it anyway: In the United States, there is an absolute division between manufacturers and dealerships. Today we’re going to talk about how a dealership is really organized, and who really makes the decisions. We’ll cover it all, from the way dealers finance their stock to the tale of the salesman who took a female customer in a Mustang convertible for a “test drive” that ended with the two of them having rather public sexual intercourse on the road adjacent to the service building…. I’m not going to write a book, but I am going to spend some time talking about the business. I’d like to think Frank wouldn’t mind it if I talked about the business now, but just in case, I want to apologize to him, wherever he is. Those days are gone, and Frank went with them, dying at the end of a short but brutal bout with cancer well before the turn of this century. Once upon a time, the car business was a real profession, not a dumping ground for low achievers and double-fisted-handshaking douchebags. I arrived at a deep sympathy with, and later a bit of nostalgia for, the business as it once was. I wouldn’t share our secrets, our business, our life, with people on the outside,” and here his glare became quite focused and intense as I shrank back in one of the used car building’s rickety old wire-frame chairs, “and neither… should… you.”Īs the years went on, I came to appreciate and understand his statement. I would never write or say anything against this business. “I could do that,” he said, “but I won’t. He “fixed me with his eye”, as the Ancient Mariner did, and replied v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. His lit cigarette – yes, you could still smoke indoors at a car dealership back in 1994 – dangled dangerously out of his stained hand. “Hey Frank, you oughta write a book about this stuff.” Frank reacted to this mild suggestion with unconcealed disapproval and what was very possibly contempt, as if I’d suggested that he put a firecracker in the dealership toilet. One lifeless Tuesday afternoon, I said to him, After forty-plus years in the business, Frank knew all the tales of the car biz, and he wasn’t shy about telling them, no matter how disturbing, slanderous, or just plain obscene they might be. Instead, I’d buy two fifty-nine-cent McD’s cheeseburgers and wander over to the used car department, where “old Frank”, the finance manager for the “used side”, would be telling stories. Heck, I couldn’t even afford to eat a real lunch. On a monthly “draw” against commission of eight hundred dollars, I didn’t exactly live like a king. The hours weren’t great, and most of the actual minutes were even worse, as Douglas Adams would say. Fourteen years ago, I was a flat broke, know-nothing kid starting at the bottom of a small-town Ford dealership’s auto (and light truck!) sales department. I’d like to start this week with a bit of an apology – not for what I’ve done, mind you, but for what I am going to do. ![]() Another one from the vaults: 2007 to be exact! - JB
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