<VV> Being a Car Dealer (was: Toyota - still no Vair)

[Vairtec Corporation]

shortle wrote:

> 10 Years I worked in a Volvo new car dealer and it was an experience
>   

My father was a pilot for PanAm, leaving the airline just as jets 
arrived.  In those days of propeller-driven aircraft and overseas 
flights, my father was away from home for weeks at a time.  With an 
infant daughter (my older sister) at home, he decided to quit flying and 
open a car dealership in his hometown.

He opened "Monogram Motors" in Ridgewood, NJ, selling British imports 
(MG, Austin, Morris) and Crosley.

He quickly grew to hate it.  He decided the reason he hated it was 
because he was the owner.  So he sold Monogram Motors and joined Lawall 
Chrysler, literally across the street from the import dealership.

While working at the Chrysler store, he realized that the problem was 
not ownership.  It was because, and I quote, "you had to deal with every 
joker who walked through the door."

He got out of the automobile business and got in to industrial 
manufacturing, where he lived Happily Ever After.

But he told me that "every joker" line at a relatively young age, so it 
stayed with me, through my stint in manufacturing, through my stint at 
the auto body shop, through to this very day.  Today I run a business 
that markets to a very specific audience, not the general public.

A few footnotes:

-During my father's ownership of Monogram Motors, he was offered a line 
of unknown German imports.  He turned it down.  Yup, it was Volkswagen.

-After my father sold it, Monogram Motors evolved into a Rambler 
dealership.  When the Rambler dealership moved out of town to a highway 
location, an unknown Japanese brand moved into the building.  Others 
cars went boingidy-boingidy-boingidy but this new car went 
hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

-When the Mazda dealership moved to a highway location, a floor 
coverings store took over the building.  It's still there.

-When I was an infink, in downtown Ridgewood you could buy 17 distinct 
brands of cars from 11 separate in-town dealers.  Today, there are none.

--Bob Marlow