That’s Hot!

I’m sure if you are reading this and you were, are, or will be a car salesman/woman then you know or should know sometimes we meet some really dumb people. Some are just challenged, some are crazy. And some of them can cause pain, but there are those who’s car shopping causes them more pain than they could ever dish out.

I was working on a pot lot on auto row for a while. We were mostly a wholesale operation and cars would pass through on a weekly basis getting ready to go to the auction or get handsold to other dealers. One day we bought a gorgeous 280ZX. It was gold, and it was out-of-the-wrapper showroom nice.

I had it sitting out in the middle of the lot while I moved cars around. When I moved cars around, inevitably, a suspect would drop in, and sure enough, a young guy drives in, (In what turned out ot be a borrowed from a friend car). He was dressed well; nice hair cut, nice shoes, slacks, and a collared shirt. And he walked right up to the Z Car.

I hit him up and got his story. He just really thought the car was cool and I could tell he had no idea what he was looking at. He probably wasn’t much over twenty maybe twenty-two years old, and he was car dumb, completely. I had the key in my pocket so I let him sit in it and let him start it. It was an automatic which was good, I thought. He probably didn’t know how to drive a stick.

I took him for a drive, (he didn’t want to drive it. I think it scared him) and he said he would buy it and had cash in the bank, while we were driving. I don’t even know if I had gave him a price yet. But he was a buyer and a soon to be owner.

On the way back to the lot, I hit a pothole and something rattled around underneath. I figured it was the tailpipe or muffler and told him we’d fix it, no worries. I drove into the lot and parked it at a rakish angle right in front of my office.

As soon as we got out of the car my new friend walked around to the back of the car, bent down, and grabbed the exhaust tip hanging under the bumper and gave it a tug. And left a layer of skin stuck to the pipe, smokin’, and stinkin.’

He tried to shake it off. I could tell it was killing him, but he was he was so trying to blow it off as nothing. He was gasping and I could tell he wanted to scream. I took him to the bathroom and ran water on it for a while, and got out a first aid kit for some cream of some kind and wrapped a bunch of gauze around it.

He bought the car, wrote us a check, and did all the paper work. I could tell he was in bad shape, but he was a trooper.

I had our lot porter drive his borrowed car back to it’s owner and the kid drove his Z. I called him the next day to see how he was. He was okay, but told me he went to emergency to treat his hand, but he assured me he was in love with his Z Car. Boy I hope that kid made it. Bet he never grabbed another tail pipe!