We were all standing around doing what Car Men do best: bullshitting, smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee, when we heard the sound of sirens. Curious, we moved toward the front of the store that faced Mission Boulevard to see what was going on. As the sirens neared, a car flew by us, a brand new red Nissan 240SX with orange Hayward Nissan happy tags in the license plate area. Seconds later, the first of four cop cars followed in hot pursuit.
There was silence for a moment, and then someone said, “Hey, wasn’t that one of ours?” It was then we noticed the hole in the second line where the SX in question had been parked the night before. Someone had stolen our car, and as we would later find out used it as a getaway car after robbing a bank.
Every Car Man has his favorite stolen car memories. Here are a few more of mine.
We had a new Nissan Maxima stolen. Somehow, the thief managed to get a hold of the keys and during the night drove it over the landscaping, the curb, and was gone. The car was missing nearly a month when we got a call from the police department. It seems that the thief was a student at the local junior college. One day he illegally parked the car in the parking lot of a movie theater across the street from the campus. It was towed to a city impound lot.
Believe it or not the car thief went down to the impound lot and tried to claim it; arguably one of the dumbest car thieves of all time! It reminds me of a line from “Good Morning Judge” a song from the 70’s rock group 10CC. “Saw a car but couldn’t pay/fell in love so I drove it away”.
All Car Men know that one of the most dangerous things he can do is go on a demonstration drive. A wag once noted that a successful test drive is one where they do not find you dead in the trunk. The car dealerships along Hayward’s auto row are particularly enticing for a car thieves. They are located at the base of a steep hill that runs up to the state university. The looping road goes up the hill and around the campus. During my days working in Hayward it was a favorite place for customers to drive a car, especially on the weekends when the commuter college was mostly empty. It was also a favorite place for car thieves to highjack cars. More than one Car Man found himself facing the wrong end of a gun in one of the lonely parking lots on a Saturday afternoon. In the days before cell phones the thief had plenty of time to make his getaway before his deed could be reported to the police. Though it never happened to me, I know of at least three instances where Car Men (and one Car Lady) were put in peril.
When I was a deskman, one of my green pea salesmen went out on a demo ride with a guy in a used VW bus. They got a couple of blocks down the street when customer told the salesman he was really thirsty and pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11. He told the salesmen if he went in and got him a Coke, he would buy one for him too. Well, you know Car Men, always amiable to a free drink, and I suppose you can guess what the kid discovered when he came out of the store, but there was a little wrinkle.
Said green pea was too ashamed to tell the police that he had been snookered out of the car, so he invented a rather elaborate tale about a gun and threats. The cops became suspicious of his rambling story and later charged him with filing a false police report.
Goodbye green pea.
My favorite stolen car story unfortunately happened to me. The car was not stolen at gunpoint thank God; it was a case of fraud. Our dealership was located near a naval station. A young sailor went to his credit union and managed to get a pre-approval letter for an auto loan. He came to us interested in purchasing a new Nissan Sentra, a basic one with no extras. When the deal hit the desk, I called the credit union and verified that the guy was indeed approved for a car. With this information, I gave the sailor a purchase order and rolled him. What I did not know was that he had used the same letter earlier in the day at another dealership. The idiot bought two cars with one approval! The first dealership’s deal hit the credit union first and was funded, mine did not.
Poor me.
The dealer (my brother, Danny) was upset about this, of course, but he did admit that procedurally I had done nothing wrong. But I rolled the car. It was my responsibility. We started to investigate. Apparently the sailor had just been honorably discharged from the Navy. How he had gotten approved for a car loan remains a mystery to me.
I took a very large salesman with me, and we went to his apartment. He had moved out. After calling his references, we discovered that he had given the first car to his girlfriend, and had left town with ours. No one knew where he had gone until . . .
About ten days later I received a call from a Nissan dealer in New York City. Our customer had apparently walked into the sales manager’s office at Manhattan Nissan, handed him the keys to our car and calmly said, “This belongs to Hayward Nissan.” He turned and walked away, never to be seen again. I guess he just needed a ride to New York!
I was in California; the Sentra was in New York. What the hell do I do? I first tried to see if I could sell the car to the dealer. “It’s a stick shift,” he said. “You can’t sell a stick shift car in New York City.” Made sense, I guess.
Danny suggested that I get on an airplane and drive it back. He seemed to think it was a fitting punishment since I had rolled the car. It was the middle of summer. The car had no air, no radio. Did not sound like fun to me.
Then out of the blue I received another call from the manager at Manhattan Nissan. It turned out he had a car stolen too, and it was found in L.A. He had a proposition: he would send a driver out with our car. If we paid for his gas and a plane ticket to L.A., we would be even.
I jumped on this, of course, not believing my luck. The deal was made, and three days later our Sentra pulled into the lot. Three days? The driver must have driven eighteen hours a day! He was dressed in his Manhattan Nissan work uniform, looking as if he had just pulled the car out of a service department. There was something surreal about it. The only thing in the car was a bottle of window cleaner and some paper towels. He had crossed the country in mid-summer without even a radio. What did he do to pass the time, hum?
I examined the car, fearing the worse, but the Sentra was undamaged, though it now had 6500 miles on it. Danny came out, looked at the car, and shook his head. I knew I had successfully dodged a bullet.
I cleaned up the car. All the expenses related to its recovery were charged to it. I put it in the showroom and put a spiff on it. A couple of days later we sold it—and actually made a small profit!
The Car God had shined on me.
Talk to you later,
David
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