At Hayward Nissan we had a finance manager named Bill Cola. Bill was an avid skier, and every winter he’d take a Nissan Pathfinder for a demo. It was the perfect vehicle for his treks up to the Sierras. The problem was he wouldn’t come back to work until the last possible moment and that meant coming to work with a filthy, snow and mud caked demo. My brother used to really get on him about this.
One day Bill was warned that there would be a demo inspection on Saturday morning after the sales meeting, and his demo had better be clean. Bill, who didn’t like to be told what to do, devised a plan. He told no one what he was up to. The element of surprise was of utmost importance.
On that morning, Bill arrived early and parked his Pathfinder at the very end of the line of demonstrators. He slipped into the sales meeting and waited for his moment in the sun. At the meeting’s conclusion Danny announced that there would be an inspection. We all went outside and watched as he slowly walked down the line looking for violations. Finally, he arrived at Bill’s Pathfinder.
The day before Bill had the Pathfinder detailed. After it was clean he carefully taped plastic sheets right down the middle of the truck, completely covering the passenger side of the car from front to back.
Then, he went 4-wheeling in the mud.
The result of Bill’s carefully concocted plan was nothing less than spectacular. Another Car Man legend had been born that day. Here was the 4x4 perfectly clean on one side and completely filthy on the other! I honestly don’t remember Danny’s reaction to this, but all Car Men appreciate a well-planned joke!
In the early 80’s I was working for a large, multi-store dealership in Oakland (where I had my famous test drive with Rudy Henderson). I worked with a young salesman who was a great guy, but he had a serious drinking problem. For the sake of this story, let’s call him Jim, but that’s not his real name. And I’d like to add that he got sober many years ago and is not a successful businessman with a wonderful family.
It all started when we had a Christmas party. (For the record, I did not attend this party.) The showroom floor of the Honda dealership was taken over for an evening of food, booze, and fun. Jim had way too much to drink. Way too much. And the tragedy of it all is that no one seemed to think that he shouldn’t be driving home to Fremont, which was about 20 miles away. He was completely shit-faced and the let him drive!
It was after midnight when Jim poured himself into his black Mitsubishi demo and headed home. He managed to make his way down 98th Avenue and onto the Nimitz Freeway headed south. Remarkably, he almost made it home. But a couple of exits away from the one that would take him to the safety of his apartment, he lost control of the car. Now here’s the thing. There was no one else on the road at that moment. He didn’t hit anyone, but he spun the car around a few times and managed to bang in the front, back and both sides of the car on the guardrail before finally ending up at the side of the road remarkably out of harm’s way. Bill got out and checked the car. It wasn’t drivable. The rear quarter panel was crushed in so much the wheel couldn’t turn.
Jim figured he was screwed. He was drunk and wasn’t going anywhere. He resigned himself that it was just a matter of time before the CHP showed up and arrested him. He sat down to await his fate. But a funny thing happened. Nothing. The cars that passed him on the road didn’t seem to notice the screwed up, black Mitsubishi with the drunk driver.
After waiting for what seemed to be an hour for the police, Jim, who was beginning to sober up a little, got an idea. He took the scissor jack out of the trunk and used it to push out the side panel. Then, he jacked up the car, put on the spare and drove home. All this time no cops came with red lights to arrest him.
Somehow, he had gotten away with it.
Jim knew, of course, that he was screwed job-wise. The next day about noon he drove his smashed Mitsubishi into the dealership. Without a word he went into the sales office, tossed the key to his demo on the manager’s desk and walked out.
One last story.
In the mid-90s I went to work at a small, very screwed up Chevy dealership that I won’t name here. I was the third salesman at the dealership. When I started work I was pleased to discover that the other two salesmen had demonstrators, but when I enquired about one for myself they said I couldn’t have one. Why? Well they wanted to do away with demonstrators, but they didn’t want to piss off the other two guys so decided to illuminate them through attrition. My two fellow salesmen had brand new Chevy’s, I had a 1979 Cutlass.
Is that screwed up or what?
Talk to you later,
David
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