Stories of a Car Salesman

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. Next week, I get to tell you about crap happy Pappy!