Sayonara Suzuki

Farewell Suzuki. My first serious entry in car peddling was Suzuki Somersaults‘, aka Samurai.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121106/AUTO0104/211060329/1148/rss25

May 1986, construction was on it’s ass in the Pacific Northwest. I had a wife and three kids and was drawing unemployment. A requirement was to document three job interviews a week. One interview was with “Dangerous Dan” who showed me a picture of a “Japanese Jeep” his employer was going to be selling in a week. I figured, “What the hell, it will get me out of the house”,  commission only or not,  so agreed to work there.  Planned to try it until construction got going again. Came 2004 and I was still in the car business.

I’ve always tried to break situations and business down to basic numbers. At that time to keep a roof over our head, food on the table, electricity, and heat  I needed to bring in $144 a week.  I started making  $144 a day, some days, and in the following 14 months sold 368 Samurais, one at a time, at retail.

What the customer was buying was a 30 mpg new vehicle with a  three year warranty and a $100 per month payment. They didn’t love the car. Their alternatives, at the time, was Yugo and Hyundai.  The bright boys at Suzuki though they had a winner and started jacking up the price until the monthly payment was within $10 a month of real cars. I got the hell out and started selling Fords.

What killed Suzuki, and Isuzu before them, was selling shitty re badged GM products GM was having problems selling. Their only edge was a better warranty.  Over the years I’ve met many car company “suits”, both American and foreign. The only one, at the top levels, who knew his ass from his elbow,  was Peter Butterfield. At the zone sales manager level, only two I would have hired as salesmen.

My credentials?  How about a 20 year stack of W-2s.