How the other half live !

To me Children are like Elephants, I like them but I don’t want one of my own, so I don’t see why I should have to play any part in recycling, or endure cars fitted with stop-start technology to lower their CO2 emissions, in order to save the planet for future generations. I’m 55 and I don’t want kids, my philosophy is that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away” so if the Earth explodes in another 10 years that’s ok by me.

Any future generation will not be of my doing (On purpose) so If you have kids then it should be your responsibility to preserve the Earth’s resources for your offsprings – it’s you who should be made to drive round in a Silent electric car, and separate your bottles and cans in different bins, in fact, if you have more than 2 kids you should be made to separate my recycling too.

 I like the sound of a finely tuned engine so I should be allowed to chose a V12 if I want – why should I be made to feel guilty driving a gas guzzler just so that you lot can keep reproducing? That’s my opinion and I am entitled to it but the reality is that having to go to the petrol station fills me with dread, I hate standing in a big pool of some dirty truckers spilled diesel, and the older I get, the less appealing driving a car that will pass everything on the road except a fuel station becomes.

I don’t need a car that will go from 0 to “Dearly beloved we are gathered here today” in 2.5 seconds,  I appreciate Super Cars like Art Lovers would a Picasso whoops bad example his paintings are shit. Supercars are usually synonymous with enhanced bodywork, huge spoilers high maintenance costs, a demand for constant attention, and a tendency to be a bit temperamental; actually I suppose that could describe the Babe usually found adorning the passenger seat too.

A couple of years ago I spent a short time working for a Supercar Dealer and I really enjoyed it, we had some amazing cars in stock and I got to meet some great and interesting people, we had customers calling from all over the world, one even asked me to fly out to an island just off the coast of Japan to value a “One-Off” car that he wanted to part exchange against a Bentley that we had in stock, he said he would put me up in the “Lake House” It sounded very tempting however we sold the Bentley to a customer that was already on the go, having too many customers can sometimes be as frustrating as not having any!

Selling Supercars was totally different than the everyday grind that I was used to, It soon became clear that the Market was extremely buoyant and is not really affected by the economic climate of the United Kingdom, as somebody from another country that’s doing OK just rings up and says “I’ll transfer the money and send a transporter to pick it up”.

I had come from selling “Bread and Butter” cars and to say that I had been having a hard time was an understatement. So when my new Boss in all seriousness asked me if I knew anything about “This Recession that they kept talking about on the news” he really struck a nerve, I looked at him in disbelief, then covered my face with my hands and shook my head from side to side, I was speechless, I just thought to myself, “Almighty God, how the other half live!”

My Boss had been on at me to go home in different cars so that I could learn about them, 30 years ago I would have been sat in the driver’s seat of a Ferrari or Lambo before he finished his sentence, but to be honest our customers knew what they wanted already and telephone conversations usually started with “Have you still got” followed by “Can I pay for it with my debit card ?”

I don’t really like driving cars that don’t belong to me and if I have to I am ultra-careful, going home in a £150,000 Lamborghini would just keep me awake worrying about it. One night my old faithful Mercedes C270 CDi let me down and wouldn’t start, so out of courtesy I rang to ask my Boss for permission to use a car for the night, he said “Course you can, you deserve a treat take anything you want” I was spoiled for choice, we had a showroom full of Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maseratis, Porsches, and Bentleys.

We were all going out that night so when I pulled up at the venue in the £2500 Vauxhall Meriva 1.3 that we had part exed against an old BMW, My Boss saw me, he looked at me in disbelief covered his face with his hands, shook his head from side to side, and although he didn’t say anything, I could tell what he was thinking,
 “Allah Almighty how the other half live!

Jap Crap?

I’m 40 years older but I still remember the “Jap Crap” days, everything that came from the Land of the Rising Sun would go rotten and run like a bag of spanners, except that wasn't exactly true. The first Japanese car I ever remember taking an interest in was The Toyota 2000 GT driven by Aki Wakabayashi in the 1967 James Bond Film You Only Live Twice, compared to what was adorning the roads of Britain at the time it was drop-dead gorgeous, and so was the car she was driving.

I live in a town not too far from Leyland, when I was a kid British Leyland and British Aerospace employed the majority of people from Preston and the surrounding towns, all their workforce were privy to the company car scheme, employees could get very cheap new cars for themselves and also their friends. British Leyland had the monopoly, there were very few Japanese cars sold in Preston, there were also very few German Opels sold from the garage where I washed cars at weekends

However, to me it seemed like the unions and workforce were determined to strangle the life out of the firm, and they would walkout on strike for the slightest reason, the brazier where the strikers gathered to keep warm, and stop "Scabs" (other workers who didn't want to strike) crossing the picket line was like the Olympic torch, it hardly ever went out.

Even though they were getting massive discounts the local people were getting fed up of being let down on the delivery of their new car, and they slowly started to look at other makes. Soon the Japanese started to make inroads, the “Jap Crap” dealers had a field day.

The Dealers couldn’t get enough cars to satisfy demand, so they seized the opportunity to make money and maximised their profit on each car. It was impossible for customers to buy a standard car and the dealers made sure that everyone had to have, sunroof, mats, mudflaps, vinyl roof, coach lines whether they wanted them or not.

They were also very selective in the part exchanges they took in, and how much they allowed on them, I had a customer who had walked out of the local Datsun garage in disgust, he complained that he thought they were trying to steal his swapper and the salesman replied, and I quote “If you don’t like it go away and sell your pile of shit yourself”. 

Such was the stigma attached to Japanese cars I can’t remember our garage taking one in part exchange until the late ’70s and I don’t think I had actually ever sat in a Japanese car until I was a 15 year old apprentice when I had to accompany the bosses Son on a job. In an effort to slow him down before he killed himself and his passenger (namely me)  his Father had made him sell his rally Prepared Ford Escort Mexico with a Cosworth BDA engine and bought him a Toyota 1000 JCK77N, trouble is he still drove it like it was a Rally Prepared Escort, and the Toyota didn’t have a “Roll Cage”.

Up to then the only time I had ever been on 2 wheels on a public road was on my racing bike,  but we managed to do it in his Toyota when he took a left-hander far too fast, instead of putting the tail end out, the tyres held traction, the near side wheels came off the ground and as we exited the corner, laughing like a maniac he overcorrected the steering angle (applied Opposite lock) and my side which was at angle of about 45 degrees fell back to earth with an almighty thump, he was unperturbed by the incident but I nearly lost my breakfast, from both ends.

The firm that I worked for as an apprentice had also bought a Toyota Crown for the MD, he wanted comfort with all the bells and whistles, but he was fed up of pumping petrol into his normal Daily ride which was a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, the Rolls was to become a Sundays only car, then pretty soon he decided that the Crown was every bit as comfortable to drive as his Rolls and it didn’t break down as often so the Roller became a surplus to requirements not used at all car and the boss sold it.

For me another work-related incident with the Crown also dispelled the myth that Japanese cars were built out of sheet metal that was slightly thinner than cigarette paper. The car cleaner who had never driven an automatic car before selected reverse gear by mistake and set off backward totally demolished the substantial British built red brick wall behind him, scattering debris all over the car park, and coming to rest in a massive pile of rubble but inflicting very little damage to the Crown’s substantially built rear end.

The bosses son ran his Toyota 1000 for a few months he even did a rally in it, no preparation, no alteration but just as it had come out of the dealers, it survived and he brought it home intact and in a very respectable position which belied its tiny engine size, he became a legend at the local Toyota dealer, and he even got to appear in a Toyota TV Commercial telling everyone that he loved his Toyota because it had “Straight Forward Motor Engineering”,

He was a “Ford" guy through and through but I suspect he got a good deal for selling out on the TV Commercial and he swapped his Toyota 1000, for a dog dick red Toyota Celica OHG1P, this was the first-ever car that had achieved 100 mph while I was in the passenger seat, it was a fantastic car, it was slowly dawning on me that the name Jap Crap was more than a little misleading.

Years later I was working for a Prestige Manufacturer and as happens when a new car is released, all the salesmen are sent on a driving day, to be brainwashed and compare the New product with that of our competitors. I had never driven a Lexus before but I had only heard good things about them in the trade, there were 4 of us in the car and none of us were too impressed, it didn’t drive quite as good as the Jaguar, BMW 7 Series, Or the Mercedes S Class.

When it was my turn to drive the Lexus I pressed the accelerator and I got the impression that it wasn’t just the other salesmen I was sharing the car with that were retarded, I could clearly feel the engine holding back so I pulled into a lay-by and popped the bonnet, the Lexus had only been marginally worse than the other cars but once I had put the plug leads back on properly it was the clear winner, our hosts had resorted to the Old Jap Crap misinformation and had sabotaged the Lexus, that’s how good it really was!

In the 70s I remember reading that a number of the British Leyland night shift staff had been sacked, they must still have been tired even after being on strike for ages and had been caught sleeping on duty, it’s not like they had just dozed off for a few minutes in a chair, apparently it was rife, they were discovered fast asleep in sleeping bags in a special room that they had made inside the factory out of parts boxes. We were once the best in the World, now we were the laughing stock.

Things are very different these days, one in every seven new cars sold is actually produced in Britain, a single Car Factory in Sunderland produces more cars in a year than the entire Italian Car industry, unfortunately they’re not Austins, Triumphs, or Rovers they’re Nissans. The Japs literally caught us napping, they showed us how to manage the workforce, get the best out of people, operate factories, and build cars efficiently.

A Japanese Samurai Warrior would fight to the death or as a very last resort, rather than surrender to the enemy he would choose to die with honour and commit Seppuku (suicide), I just wish we had actually fought harder to keep the once-great British Car Industry rather than committing Seppuku before we had even been threatened.

Louis Armstrong was wrong!

I used to hate Mothers Day, I had tried my best to get it declared a Bank Holiday at work so we could close, but I failed. I was working at a Mercedes Benz garage and we were open till 4.00pm, we were situated near to a couple of Brewers Fayre pubs and eateries, they were only open till 3.00pm which meant one thing, we would be inundated with tyre kicker’s, and their Mother in Laws.

It seemed to me to be some sought of ritual, the Son in Law reluctantly would take their Wife’s Mum out for lunch on Mothering Sunday, but 3 O’clock was too early to drop the old bat off at her house, they couldn’t risk taking her to their house in case she sat down, settled in and cocked their whole night up too.

The solution to the problem was “Role Play” no not that type! They would take her to the nearest Mercedes Benz Dealer (which unfortunately was us) and would pretend and "play-act" that they were looking for a new car, which they weren’t, mostly it was a subliminal hint that if the Mother in Law was going to leave them any money in her will, she may as well give it to them now so they wouldn’t have to strap themselves up with finance payments which they couldn’t really afford and would mean that there was a danger that her beloved Grand Children may suffer and not get the latest computer game.

Some weren’t hints, they were almost torturing their Mother in Law by showing her exactly where her savings would end up the minute her estate was divided up between her survivors, and probably before the ink was dry on their inheritance cheque. The bottom line was that I had no chance of selling any of them a car, they were just wasting time till they could drop her off and so that she wouldn't feel that her outing had been a waste of rouge and Lilly of the Valley perfume.

There was one exception, a rather spirited Old Lady who bought a fully specced A-Class, as she was signing the order form she leaned over whispered to me that “there was no way that she was going to leave any of her “hard-earned” to that little weasel that her Daughter had married”, she whispered it just loud enough so that he could hear her, but he still watched her signing the cheque like a dog watches someone eating a steak dinner, his plan like most of mine, had just gone spectacularly wrong.

We may as well have been a Mother In Law minding service not a Mercedes Benz Dealer, while they were sat in a car that they couldn’t afford, they would sit her down at your desk, leaving you to make small talk and keep her entertained for a few hours, actually they didn’t sit her down at my desk, all my years of experience had taught me one thing, 3.00 O’clock on Mother’s Day hide your chairs in the brochure cupboard and go and make a brew, this pre-emptive strike means that you get to go home at 4.00 leaving the other salesmen to hang about till they can prize the pensioners out of the doors and close up.

Whenever you agree to stay behind for a customer I can guarantee that something goes wrong with the deal, if you let a customer dictate the time of your meeting you give them the upper hand and a stronger negotiating position, you are trying to sell a car, but to the customer you appear desperate, being desperate costs you £500 be warned!

Having said that, I was desperate, I’d had a car longer than I should have, I needed to sell it and I had just had my first enquiry on it, the guy on the telephone worked in Manchester and couldn’t make it during normal opening times, my normal opening hours were 7.30 am – 6.00 pm Monday to Friday, 7.30 am – 5 pm, Saturday and 11.00 am till 4.00 pm Sunday, I have a name for people who can’t make it during the 67 hours a week that I already worked “Twats”

The caller said that he would come after work the next night, but he might not make it by 6.00 pm, I reluctantly broke my own rules for the last ever “No Exceptions” time, one proviso I would wait back so long as the customer rang me when he was leaving work, 5 Oclock the next night the customer rang me to say that he was on his way, and I said that I would wait.

I had thought that the reason he may possibly be late was due to the traffic coming out of Manchester which can be terrible, even then it shouldn't take longer than an hour, I had also thought that "On his way meant he was coming directly from work to my pitch" 6.00 pm came and went, and 6.30, at 7.00 pm I decided to ring his mobile to enquire as to his whereabouts’, he said that he would be another 15 minutes, but I could hear a TV in the background, Where are you right now? I asked unless he had a TV in his car,  I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer, “I’m at home having my tea, then I’m coming to see the car” he said as if it wasn't actually any of my business, The blue touch paper was lit! "Do you think I have nothing better to do than sit here waiting for you to have your tea?"  That was obviously exactly what he thought, as his answer was “Look, Do you want to sell the car or not? Mine was “Not to someone like you I don't, I would rather set fire to it”

A couple of months later I still had the car, but more importantly to me,  I still had my self-respect too!

Yippee Ki Yay Mr Customer

I poured her a glass of wine, but before she could take it from my hand I jumped back almost spilling it, she was startled to say the least, I’m not sure what startled her the most, the fact that I had jumped back like a lunatic, or that she thought that she wasn’t going to get the wine, I explained the incident without going into too much detail, my explanation was "Sorry, it’s just that a gang of crooks have threatened to kill me, I saw a red dot on my chest in the mirror and I thought it was a laser sited firearm aimed at my heart” I could tell by her expression that wasn't really what she wanted to hear, I tried to make light of the situation, sat back down on the settee and carried on watching the TV as if it was an everyday occurrence in my life, and hoping she would forget.

It wasn’t a sniper about to pull the trigger it was just a shaft of light refracting off the bezel of my Rolex and through the glass of Merlot  that I was about to pass her, my explanation seemed to do the trick as she was pretty quiet for the rest of the night, but she did drink more than her fair share of Merlot.  

I'm pretty sure she just thought I had watched too many movies, which in fairness I had, but that didn't mean I wasn't telling the truth. I hadn't known her very long so I thought it was better not to go into too much detail and scare her off there and then, I would just let matters take their natural course as it usually took at least a couple of months before they got fed up of me, this incident wouldn’t help matters at all but over the years I hadn't changed for the better in any way what so ever, so the chances that it this one would turn into a long term relationship were slim to zero, after all I was getting on a bit and none of my previous ones had. 

Later that night it was my turn to be startled by her, when she let out a piercing scream and jumped out of bed, for reasons best known unto herself she had put her arm under my pillow, and felt the cold steel of my Beretta, nope that’s not a euphemism it’s actually an Italian made semi-automatic pistol, and in my opinion, it is to handguns, what Ferrari is to supercars.

I tried to calm her down by telling her it was the same gun that Mel Gibson used in Lethal Weapon, the gun overshadowed his acting and was the real star of the film, all the gun shops in America sold out within a few hours of the release of the movie when I saw Mel unload a full clip and take out a Sniper, I just had to have one too, however when she had mumbled “why”, apparently what she had actually meant was, why did I sleep with a loaded gun under my pillow, not why had I bought it in the first place, she also added “You Moron” through gritted teeth, I thought that was very brave of her, particularly as I was now holding a loaded gun in my hand, nothing but the full story was now going to shut her up.

I would like to stress that this was an extreme measure, I am a law-abiding person, but I was genuinely in fear for my life if they were going to come after me,  I wasn't just going to roll over and die. I held a valid Firearms Certificate, and I am a very good shot. When not being transported to and from the gun club where I practiced Combat shooting (Pop Up Targets), technically my Stainless Steel Beretta 92 FS should have been locked up in my gun cabinet, and not where it actually was when I was in bed, under my pillow, cocked and locked with, 15 x 9mm Parabellum bullets in the magazine, and another one up the spout (in the firing chamber), but a gang had really threatened to kill me and I had taken their threat very seriously indeed.

When I was outside of my house I would be a sitting duck, but to get at me inside my home, first of all, they would have to find where I lived, and that would mean following me home from the garage, I was always very careful to make sure I wasn't being followed, I went to great lengths, driving home via different routes, different directions, different times, in different cars, always keeping an eye on the cars behind me.

If they did manage to find where I lived, to get me they would have to defeat my security system and get up my creaky stairs, avoiding the step with the hidden pressure pad, then get through my security locked bedroom door, without waking me, if they woke me, I had a panic button by my bed, if that didn't frighten them off and they got through the door, then I'm afraid they would need to be bulletproof, because there would be 16 high-velocity Parabellum rounds heading in their direction, it was a last resort, but as I said I did take their threat very seriously indeed.

You're probably thinking that I would have had time to get my gun out If I heard an intruder downstairs, true, my gun safe was concealed in my bedroom, but it was not easy to get my gun out as I had made sure that no one would be able to steal a weapon of mine and use it to commit a crime, I would never be able to forgive myself if that had happened.  My gun was kept in a safe, within a safe, it was also wired to my house alarms "Tamper" circuit, which meant that even if my house alarm wasn't armed, the klaxon would sound immediately the safe was opened, or if someone tried to remove it from the wall, the only way to open it was by entering first the alarm code, then the special engineer's code to take the system completely offline.

I had contacted the Police to ask for help and advice but the desk Sergeants response was something like "Oh Dear, that's not good is it, but what do you expect me to do? I took it from his attitude that putting me in the witness protection program was not something the Walton Le Dale Police force were familiar with, and my request for a new identity and relocation to a Safe House in Miami with Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs guarding me fell on deaf ears.

(Parabellum loosely translated means "prepare for war" ) I'm a Parabellum kind of guy, I prefer a quiet life, but if it’s a war you want, I’m prepared for it!  

(Back to my explanation)

It briefly crossed my mind to use the excuse that a friend of mine used to avoid any potentially awkward "We Need to Talk's"  with his girlfriend,  early on in their relationship he had confided in her that he was in the SAS (Special Air Service) and there would be times when he was called away at a moments notice,  whenever she suspected that he’d been up to no good, he would say that "He had been on a Top Secret Mission, he could tell her about it, but then he would have to kill her”, his excuse worked for a short while until she realised that it was unlikely he would come home smelling of alcohol, perfume and be covered in lipstick if he had actually been sent on a mission to dispatch a few terrorists. 

It was clear that my Girlfriend was absolutely horrified, I'm not a very good liar as I haven't had much practice, so I couldn’t pretend that I was in the SAS, and anyway it was my mate's wife who had introduced us, she knew everything about me including that I was an above average dyed in the wool car salesman, not an elite die in a combat zone killing machine,  she had already warned my girlfriend not to get too attached to me or she’d only end up being disappointed.

After discovering my gun, my soon to be Ex now thought that I was involved in the seedier side of the Car Business and that I was some type of Gangster, it was clear that she wasn't going to let the matter drop, forget about it, or think that she had been dreaming,  so before I could go back to sleep myself, I had to explain everything in great detail. 

I began my story with "You will laugh at this" it all started when I advertised my Rolex for sale" I was wrong she didn't laugh!  

Would my story convince you?  

When I want something I can’t rest until I’ve got it, but when I’ve got it I lose interest immediately and I don't really want it anymore, I’ve always been the same, I had saved every penny till I could afford to buy a Rolex when I got it after I'd worn it a few times I didn't want it anymore, I scratched it the on the garage doors the first day I got it and the last straw was when I wore it on a night out in Preston with my mates. 

After last orders I left to make my way home I usually walked which gave me chance to get some fresh air and sober up a little, although I was a bit tipsy I noticed that a guy who had been staring at my wrist all night had followed me out of the pub, he either fancied me or he wanted my watch for himself, I could see his reflection in the shop windows, he was about 30 feet behind me and I knew he was biding his time till he could jump me I found myself hoping it was my watch he was after. 

I satisfied myself that he was actually following me and I wasn't being paranoid, by going out of my way in the wrong direction, cutting up a side street then doubling back on myself, he wasn't very good at following people, he mustn't have realised that I was on to him and he probably thought that I was very drunk and would be easy prey. 

Ahead of me I saw a shop called Past Times which was undergoing a refit, the builders had left all the bits which they had ripped out of the shop on the floor outside, as I turned the corner I saw a big piece of wood, I picked it up and stood it against the wall within arm’s reach just in case the guy was carrying a concealed weapon, and then I waited. 

I had turned off the main road and on to a dimly lit side street, the would-be mugger realised that this would be his best chance to get me, he had quickened his pace and he came round the corner almost running, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me waiting for him, steadying himself with his arms as he almost overbalanced and fell forward, he looked as though he was balancing and trying not to tip over the precipice of a cliff. 

I asked him "what time it was", the penny dropped and he realised I was on to him,  it was "time" for him to get his ass out of there, let’s just say he wasn't as keen to attack me from the front when he saw that I had sobered up quickly and I was expecting it. 

It became clear to me that being able to tell the time in Gold and Diamonds was just asking for trouble, I was fed up of having the watch, it was a Perpetual Motion self winding model and would only self-wind due to the motion of your wrist, the state of peoples driving in England meant that it was in constant danger of being overwound when I was wearing it. 

I couldn't wear it to work as it would get ruined, and the conditions of my insurance specified that if it wasn't on my wrist it had to be locked away in my safe, which coincidentally was where I kept my gun, every time I took the bloody thing off for more than 12 hours it would stop, and then it would take me at least half an hour to reset the Day, Date and time it was becoming too much aggravation, I had bought a special box which actually had an electric motor that replicated the movement of your wrist and kept the watch wound, but it wouldn’t fit in my safe when my gun was in there. It was just too much hassle I didn't want the watch anymore so I decided to sell it. 

A couple of days after the magazine that it was advertised in hit the newsagents shelves, I got a call from a Liverpudlian, after qualifying him ( Sales Speak for asking questions, ) I had a feeling that he wasn't being entirely honest with me, my heart sank "here we go again" I thought! I realised that a prospective thief would also think that anyone stupid enough to spend that amount on something that just tells the time, would more than likely have a few other valuable possessions, so instead of inviting him to my home where he could possibly check out my security from inside only to return later and rob me, I arranged to meet him at 2 o'clock the next day at the garage where I worked. 

I was waiting at the front of the showroom when he arrived, and although he said he was coming from Manchester, I had seen him walking down the road but there was no sign of a car, this just didn't seem right at all, it got worse, he had a Mullet haircut, I didn't like him at all, I didn't believe a word he was saying and pretty much called him a liar, he probably thought that I was the worlds worst salesman and I finished my pitch by telling him that I had been in the car job a long time and had seen pretty much every scam and con there is, so if he was thinking of trying one on me, he would come off worse.

I couldn’t have made my mistrust any clearer and anyone who wasn't a Con Man would have been insulted and told me where to stick my watch, I gave him every opportunity to abandon the con which I suspected he was going to attempt, but he didn't, he was convinced that he could outsmart me, or he took my words as a challenge instead of a warning, the game was on!  

He had just looked at my watch in the box and I saw that he was careful not to touch it with his fingertips, he may as well have worn a stripey t-shirt, a mask and a bag with "Swag" written on draped over his shoulder, I took my watch out of its presentation box and handed it to him, in a way that he couldn't refuse,  now I would have his fingerprints too, he knew he would either have to buy back the evidence with real money or come up with a very convincing con.

We agreed on a price and he went off to draw the cash out, saying that he would return before the close of business, I walked with him to the front of the showroom and watched as he walked up the road, he kept turning round to see if I was still watching him, every time he turned around his stupid mullet haircut swirled from side to side like the girls in the Harmony Hair Spray advert, that annoyed me more than thinking he was trying to con me, so I walked back inside, but then when I was out of his sight I ran around the back of the garage jumped over the wall and watched him through the gaps in our fence.

When he was satisfied that I was no longer watching, I saw him signal to someone, then a car pulled out of the pub car park up the road, there were 3 other occupants and the guy who thought he was going to get a free Rolex got into the front seat, I could see they were all laughing as they drove away, I was laughing too as  I wrote down their registration number, Fingerprints and his car registration number, I knew I had them bang to rights now if they did try to Con me. 

He didn't return that day but about 4.30 pm he rang to say he was having trouble drawing out the money at the building society, they wouldn't release that amount in cash (which I knew was often the case) but they would give him a building society cheque (same as a Bankers Draft, guaranteed funds) which would be as good as cash and it would be made out directly to me. 

I knew he was lying, but just to confirm my suspicions I used an old pre “Caller Display” Salesman's trick, I told him that I was dealing with a customer in my office so I would need to call him back in a few minutes when I was finished, I asked him what telephone number he was calling from, he wasn't expecting that, if he gave me the number I would have the means to trace him, he lost his composure, clearly flustered, there was silence then he blurted out "Eeerrr,  I’m calling from my mate's house and we’re just going out, I'll call you back in 15 minutes, my inbuilt Bullshit detector jumped into the red, I now knew for definite that he was going through with his plan to Con me. 

The phone rang 15 minutes later, there was no pips as the call connected so he was still in the same place and not ringing from a call box, we had a quick chat, I played along with him and agreed to take a Building Society cheque, but asked him which Building Society he used, we made arrangements for him to come and pick my watch up at 2 O'clock the next day, this would allow me to ring the Branch from where the cheque was issued while they were still open  and see if it was real, I was still clinging on to the slim hope that he was going to relieve me of my watch by paying me for it with real money. 

As soon as I put the phone down I rang the building societies Head Office, I explained that I thought someone was trying to defraud me and the girl described in detail, the size, colour, watermarks, and every detail of how the cheque should be printed, signed and countersigned, she also told me that a number of blank cheques had been stolen from one of their branches.  

At 2 o clock I was ready and waiting, I had telephoned the local Police station to pre warn them that I would need their services, I had primed our mechanic to be on standby and to make sure he got the make, model and registration number of the vehicle the "Buyer" turned up in, but the buyer was a no show. 

I thought he had decided that it would be too risky to try and get one over on me and had abandoned his plan. At about 5 O’clock I was sat reading the paper when my office door opened and in walked a guy who looked like he belonged on a wanted poster, he threw a brown envelope down on the desk, and said I've come to pick the watch up for D#####, I didn’t like the first guy, but this guy was even more obnoxious, all the Building Society cheques I had ever been given before, and have been given since have been in White good quality self-seal envelopes, not thin, cheap brown ones that require licking to stick down. 

It was without doubt an attempted con! But it was amateur hour, when I tore open the envelope the cheque looked genuine, but my name and the amount of money it was made out for looked like it had been done with a pen and a children’s stencil set, not machine printed. I asked Mr Mug shot to wait outside while I made a quick phone call, It was too late to ring the Building Society but I didn't need to, only a complete idiot would have been taken in by this pathetic forgery, It was obvious D##### didn’t have a very high opinion of me, and it was going to cost him dearly. I put the cheque in our photocopier and printed off a couple of copies, then I put it on my desk, picked the phone up and dialled the cops. 

As usual they weren't answering their phone, and as I cursed them under my breath “Mug shot” ran into the office, he grabbed the cheque, and ran out of the showroom, our mechanic followed him up the road to the pub car park and made a note of the registration number of the car he'd come in, when the cops eventually answered I gave them all the details. 

A few days later I was contacted by the CID, it transpired that the gang had committed thousands and thousands of pounds worth of fraudulent transactions up and down the country, buying hard to trace high-value watches and antiques using forged cheques. 

Like the old joke, “Someone had stolen the toilet from the Police Station. A Spokesman said at the moment the Cops had nothing to go on” 

I was the only one who had a lead to the perpetrators, I had his fingerprints on my Rolex,  and I had gotten the registration numbers of their cars, all the other victims had let their valuables go, and were just left with a forged cheque and an invoice with a fictitious name and address on, they couldn't even claim on their insurance as the items weren't stolen, they had willingly handed them over, and the only way they could pursue their monies were through a civil court, but they didn’t know who to pursue. I was also the only one who hadn't fallen for the con, the Police set up surveillance on the cars that I had identified and pretty soon they apprehended all except one of the gang, he had managed to keep one step ahead of the posse and skip the country, I hadn't realised the scale of their operation or the number of criminals involved in the scam, I had severely pissed off a lot of the underworld.

I can’t be certain, ( I have some strange mates, and they would go to unbelievable lengths (and have done) to wind me up)  but I'm assuming it was him who rang me a couple of nights later, I knew the caller was phoning from abroad by the beeps when I answered the phone, his message was simple and to the point, he said " We know where you work, you're a fu#### dead man ! if it was D##### it was the first thing he had said to me that had a ring of truth to it!

Never being one to know when to keep my mouth shut, or putting on a foreign accent and saying "Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number, I replied "Don't say I didn't warn you, bye the way "Have you seen that new film Die Hard? that’s exactly what Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) said to John McClain (Bruce Willis) and look how well that turned out for him!” (Incidentally, Bruce Willis used a Beretta too) 

Just in case he ignored that warning too, I ran upstairs, got my Beretta out of the safe, and put it in my shoulder holster! 

Yep, it’s official I do watch too much TV

You work on commission right? Big Mistake, Big, Huge!"

The Salesman had been watching me through his office window for at least 10 minutes, he was on the phone and I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt him, however when he put the receiver down he was unbelievably rude to me, I had expected him to come out to greet me when he finished his call, he should have met me with a warm smile, introduced himself, shook my hand, try to put me at ease in his domain, done his best to make a good first impression (remember you only get one chance to create a good first impression) however he seemed to be doing his best to make sure that my first impression of him was that he was a W#####.

I took an instant dislike to him, and I was somewhat surprised to see him turn his back on me and start sifting through his paperwork and totally ignoring me, maybe he thought I was a tyre kicker and not worth bothering with, but the first thing they teach you in sales is don’t pre judge customers if he thought I couldn’t afford a New Isuzu Trooper he was spot on, however my Boss could, and he wanted one for his wife, I turned and walked out, that guys ignorance was to cost him and his Dealership a lot of money.

I’ve shopped on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and was treated courteously and with respect by every shop assistant without exception, perhaps they learned their lesson after watching the film Pretty Woman, I think it would be good if Julia Roberts made a film about buying a car I am sure it would do my industry the world of good and bring them out of the dark ages.

I was there to buy the Trooper in 1988, 2 years before the Pretty Woman was released, but after I saw the film I wanted to go back to the garage find the salesman and say “You work on commission right? Big Mistake, Big, Huge!" Course Julia Roberts left the shop assistant speechless, but this salesman probably wouldn’t remember me, or would have just told me to F### Off, even worse if he hadn't seen Pretty Woman himself he would have just thought I was a nutter.

After that incident, we went further afield to buy the car, we got a great deal, and when the Trooper arrived and was parked on our forecourt it created a fantastic amount of interest, before long we were buying more and picking up a lot of business, word soon got round that customers had a choice where to buy from, and they didn’t have to put up with poor customer service or being treated like an inconvenience from the other dealer, we were selling as many cars as we could get, soon we were having to import them ourselves to keep up with demand.

We were Vauxhall Dealers at the time and we used to get all the figures every month for new cars registered in our area, we could see how many new Isuzu’s were being registered and we could also see that we were selling a lot of them and giving the local dealer a run for their money, the salesman hadn’t made a Big Mistake, it wasn’t huge either, it was of Galactic proportions!

That was the case for the prosecution, now I’m going to hand over to the defense. I turned up not in a new car, but one that was selected purely and simply because it had come in part exchange with lots of fuel in it and I was using it to do errands, It was my day off and I was wearing jeans, It probably looked to him like I couldn’t afford one, but he could have discovered that it would be a company purchase, that there would be no part exchange, It would be a cash sale, and that he wouldn’t have to prop another dreamer with no deposit and who expected a fortune in PX for his swapper and I wasn't going to add to the part of his closing ratio statistics (the number of people you have to see before you sell a car) that his Sales Manager would use at the end of the month to beat him over the head with and tell him how bad his performance had been. Just by qualifying me (asking a few well-chosen questions) he could have found all that out and got a sale, but he didn’t, he ignored me and left me to walk out of the showroom to tell all my friends and people who read my blog never to go there to buy a car, hmm poor defense so far.

But ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I put it to you that he didn’t bother qualifying me because he was probably fed up of having to be nice to people he suspected of being messers, having spent hours dealing with them, going through specifications, options, colours, accessories, taking them out for test drives, only for them to shake his hand and say “I’ll be back on Monday if my numbers come up at weekend!” in other words, they couldn't afford their taste in Motor Vehicles but they didn't mind indulging their fantasies and wasting the salesman's time, however you have to be nice because as the saying goes you should never judge a book by its cover, later in my sales career, a customer came in and bought a Mercedes SL and a Mercedes C Class for his wife, he was wearing jeans and he looked pretty much like I did when I went to buy the Trooper, however fortunately for him, his numbers “had” come up at weekend and he’d won £6 Million on the lottery, we didn’t know that for all we knew he too could have been a messer/tyre kicker/test pilot, call them what you will, but before he left he told us that he decided to buy the cars from us, as he had been in every Mercedes Dealer from Manchester to Blackpool, and we were the only ones that had not looked down our noses at him, we had treated him with respect and as a serious buyer.

So back to 1988, our new Trooper was parked on the forecourt, the Bosses wife was here to do the accounts and as instructed she had parked the New Trooper on the end of our display and hung the price board from the sun visor, a couple who had been walking past and looked like they couldn’t afford to rub two halfpennies together wondered into the showroom, my Salesman's sixth sense flashed red and my inbuilt “Messers” alarm sounded in my ears, never the less I approached them to see if I could help, the guy asked me if the price in the windscreen was the best I could do, I replied that I could possibly knock a couple of hundred quid off, if he was a cash buyer and didn’t have a part exchange.

I was a little dumbfounded when he said, “I've got a Thousand pounds cash, take it or leave it!” my eyes and face said “Are you some kind of F##### Numbskull, but my voice said, Thanks for your generous offer but I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave it” The couple shuffled round and made their way out of the showroom never to be seen again, I followed them out and watched them catch the bus further down the road, as I walked back past the New Isuzu Trooper, I noticed that the Bosses wife had accidentally knocked a 5 off the price board, instead of reading £15995 it said £1599 but even that wasn’t cheap enough for the previous customers and they wanted me to sell it for a grand!

Lessons learned:-

1)    some people are idiots,

2)    some people are timewasters

3)    always check the price board before agreeing on a deal

if you make a mistake with the advertised price a customer can actually force you to sell him it at that price, and advertising your stock on the internet, these days at the stroke of a key it is very easy to make a mistake, for your sake, I hope it’s not a “Big, Huge one whether it be a price, or pre-judging a customer.

1 Careful Owner, and loads of maniacs who just drove it!

Watching Top Gear this week made me laugh a little more than usual, it also brought a wry smile to my face as I recalled something that happened to me in my past, and something that is going to happen again in the future to the poor unsuspecting Salesmen who sell the Volkswagen Tiguan that had Captain Slow James May behind the wheel or the Mazda CX 5 that Jeremy Clarkson was driving in the program. They were racing the 4 Wheel Drive cars across country, and just to add to the mayhem and giggles they were both towing caravans. 

The manufacturers usually sell their ex demonstrators and company cars directly to their dealers or through their closed sales (Auctions for registered dealers) however I am pretty sure that this won’t be the case with the 2 cars featured, they will be sold to some poor unsuspecting Indy Dealer who is desperate for stock, the reason they will be siphoned out of the network is that they were abused by Clarkson and May and hammered around the track by the Stig, the Tiguan crossed the line pulling a 1 wheeled caravan that's stub axle was cutting into the ground and was leaving a spectacular shower of sparks in its wake,

On the Mazda’s fast lap it was lifted off the tarmac and hoisted into the air when the caravan it was attached to overturned, the car which weighs over 1400 kgs was then pushed forward by a force applied directly to its chassis via the tow bar, I'm not clever enough to work out the kgs per cm squared that it would take to do this, but if I can liken it to the damage even the most svelte like woman wearing stiletto heels does to a wooden floor, when all her weight is concentrated and transferred to the floor through the very tip of her high heels.

Phew, its suddenly got very hot in here and I've lost my train of thought, now where was I? Argh yes, her rear end, erm, the Mazda's that is, and not the Woman in the stilettos, was lifted off the ground causing it to bunny hop down the track with its sump shield and front bumper scraping the floor, it came to rest suspended in mid-air, and was left hanging precariously,  the Stig wasn’t hurt but Clarkson and May took the precaution of taking The Stig to the recycling centre and throwing him away, (Stig of the Dump, Get it, See what I did there?),  what they should have done is left the Mazda there instead. 

The automatic braking system on the Mazda stopped Clarkson driving into a hedge, and James May driving into Clarkson, but it failed to stop Clarkson rear-ending the Tiguan, supposedly damaging the intercooler and leaving Clarkson stranded on the car park which was also the local Dogging site, (I'm ashamed to say that I found that mildly amusing too, especially as I had a similar experience in Avenham Park Preston. )

During the race with Clarkson, James May jack Knifed the Tiguan and the caravan made contact with the nearside rear wing of the car, at some point in the future an unsuspecting dealer will take these cars into stock, they will have only the Manufacturers name in the logbooks,  and the salesman will tell his customer that it is a low mileage, 1 owner vehicle with a full-service history, sounds good doesn’t it but the truth is that it has been driven by several maniacs, been redlined through every gear and crashed several times.

The sale of goods act is a funny thing, but not for Car Dealers,  and these days the courts seem to interpret it in a way that ensures even if the Dealer made some money when he originally sold the car, the customer now has an unbelievable amount of time to get his money back and some of the Car Dealers too, by suing him should the car develop a fault, or if it has been miss described, who on Earth is going to be able to describe these two cars accurately and stand any chance whatsoever of selling them, they will be sold on a need to know basis (what they don't know can't hurt them) and if at some point in the future the customer discovers the cars true history, I imagine he will have the courts sympathy and be awarded a full refund and costs?

           If this was a film and not a blog, the camera would zoom in, I would stare at the heavens, touch my chin with my thumb and forefinger and the screen would go all shimmery as I drifted back in time to when I found myself in exactly that situation, I think it was 1988 when we had started to sell Isuzu Troopers, they were fantastic cars and pretty bulletproof, we were selling more new ones (that we’d imported) than the local main dealer and we couldn’t get enough second-hand vehicles to sell.

It had come to the attention of Isuzu management that we were denting their sales figures and they approached us and offered us the franchise, one of the conditions of getting the Isuzu Franchise was that we took on the Suburu Franchise that came with it first, this was pre-Imprezza and World Rally Championship days, the range was poor, they weren’t good sellers and we thought it would be a good way to lose lots of money very fast so we politely declined and started sourcing our new vehicles from Ireland.

Perhaps politely wasn't quite accurate, Isuzu was quite upset when we broke it to them that we would rather have Aids than the Subaru Franchise, the inference being that there was no known cure for Aids but it would still be easier to get rid of than a new Subaru Legacy Wagon. One thing that came out of our brief encounter with International Motors was that we were able to add a couple of new names to our Rolodex (Jees I wonder what happened to Roladex's?)  one of our new contacts was the guy who sold off their company cars, we gave him a ring to see if there he had any Isuzu's to sell us, and after he'd gone through all the delivery mileage self-registered Subaru Legacy's he had on his books he reluctantly mentioned one Trooper.

I said earlier that we needed used stock desperately so we jumped in the car and went to try and buy it, slight drawback it was army green, it had a couple of dents on it and it looked like someone had emptied the contents of a builders yard in it, but I knew by the time I had finished valeting it would look like new, we couldn’t believe our luck, and neither could we understand why it hadn’t been snapped up by one of the Franchised Isuzu dealers. It soon became clear that maybe International Motors was harboring a bit of a grudge.

When we picked the car up, we were given a book, it was an Isuzu Lifestyle Hard Back book on the front cover was the car we had bought, it was featured heavily throughout with photographs of it crossing a shallow stream, reversing a boat trailer into a lake, driving up a gentle gradient, a family having a picnic in the middle of a field, with the Trooper parked up in the background, you know it was kind of like a TV advert for Feminine products except the director had substituted an Isuzu Tampon, it was a collection of all the things that you would buy a 4 wheel drive for with the intention of doing,  but then end up just taking the kids to school in it.

The book would really help us with the provenance of the car and show that it had belonged to the manufacturers, as a Demonstrator it would have had no expense spared on its service and maintenance history, we had customers waiting to buy and this car would fly out. 

As usually happens the service department tries its best to piss on your chips, and charge the sales department as much as they can possibly get away with for reconditioning the vehicle pre-sale, usually, the mechanics all congregate and examine a sales car en mass, they like nothing better than to find every little fault (including some that don’t actually exist) and do their very best to make sure that all the money goes to their department and you don’t make any profit when you sell it.

When they put the car on the ramp, they noticed that the bumps and bangs on the bodywork were nothing compared to the ones it had sustained underneath, never mind gentle slopes, it looked like it’d had its wheels removed then been dragged up and down K2, or a high rocky mountain that you've heard of, there was lots of damage that we would need to repair, the exhaust was battered, brake pipes almost flattened, the floor was gouged, most of the cars underseal had been scraped off, and the cause of the rattling on tick over was discovered, and rectified by removing the half a ton of shale and rocks that had collected in the heat shields and sump guard.

After all the rectification had been carried out, the car was as good as new and we put it on

sale in early December,  it wasn’t long before a guy came to buy it, he lived at the top of Winter Hill where the massive 450-foot mast which supplies the TV signal to all the North West region is situated. Winter Hill is one of the most inhospitable places in the UK and my customer was fed up of being snowed in and unable to get to or from his house, he definitely needed a 4 wheel drive, he had done his research, he wanted a trooper, and we had the only one in his price range, he was very easy to deal.

A few days later I was just sitting down to my Christmas Dinner when my phone rang, my Boss sounded even more depressed than usual, he said “Switch on ITV Now you won't believe it” There was a program on called “Celebrity Challenge” the TV warmed up just in time for me to see the Formula 1 driver Emerson Fittipaldi racing Mike Smith the car fanatic and Radio 1 Disc Jockey round a track that would normally be used for Motor Cross, Mike and Emerson were fighting tooth and nail, they were neck and neck, wheel to wheel, they both hit the biggest Jump on the circuit at precisely the same instant, the vehicles launched off the ramp soared into the air, and collided at the top of their trajectory. Emerson was driving our Green Isuzu Trooper, and the registration Numbers was on for all to see, I was horrified, any chance of plausible deniability had gone! and that's why International Motors sold the car to us instead of one of its own Franchised Dealers.

I prayed that for some reason even though he lived next door to the TV transmitter he couldn’t get that channel or he was watching The Queens Speech instead, as you probably know I have a hope for the best, plan for the worst "Shit Happens" kind of mantra,  but basically, on this one I was f#### .

Addendum,

Neither the customer nor any of his friends must have seen the program,  although I did take the precaution of locking myself in the boot of a car when I saw him walking into the showroom a few weeks later (my favorite hiding place), but I was safe he had just called in to tell us how much he loved his car, it never developed any problems, and continued to be fit for the purpose which he had bought it for many years to come.

Cars in those days literally were bulletproof, even if they broke down, they were relatively easy to fix,  they didn't have computer designed crumple zones that bend like tin foil if you lean on them, or airbags that explode in your face when you switch your I phone on, neither could the customer reject a car and ask for his money back if he got it home and found out that his wife didn’t like it because the colour clashed with her curtains.

I will close this blog with a short message to the future sellers of the Mazda CX 5 and the VW Tiguan that was featured on Top Gear, I pray that unlike Isuzu, the manufacturers had the good sense to put on false registration numbers and that whoever buys the cars doesn’t have the benefit of endless Top Gear reruns on his Sky TV Dave and Dave Ja Vu channels

Or failing that, I hope that you, like me are, living proof that it’s far better to be lucky than smart!

May the force be with you!