TIM'S AUTO SALES, AND THE EARLY "MUSCLE CARS"

Everything you ever heard about used car salesmen is probably true, especially if you knew my father. If you actually bought a car from him then you proved Barnum right about a sucker being born every minute, or something like that. He was selling "muscle cars" before the term was popular.

Dear old dad operated a used car lot in Bayonne, N.J., in the years right after the end of World War II. It had the simple name TIM'S AUTO SALES, but he made up for that with a genuine huckster's slogan: "Bring In A Lemon, Take Out a Peach." All things considered, anyone who bought a car from my father deserved what happened to them.

Looking back, Dad's lot was full of "muscle cars." Real muscle cars, because there was a good chance buyers would be using their "muscles" to push their recent purchase back to the lot before they got very far.

My father had been involved in things automotive all of his life including auto racing, taxi cabs, and buses. Sharing the same vision that Preston Tucker had, namely that all those returning war veterans would want cars, my father had a different solution. Tucker created a totally new automobile. Dad, on the other hand purchased hundreds of surplus military sedans, revamped and reconditioned them, albeit slightly, with new paint and cosmetics and sold them.

A friend once asked why Tim's Auto Sales,' replete with a locked gate and high chain-link fence festooned with a generous number of various color Christmas Tree lights all around the top, was never open during the day? And why the silly little holiday lights instead of normal lighting?

"These cars look good at night, especially with this lighting," was his honest response.

All the cars on Tim's Auto Sales lot were Battleship gray because he had purchased hundreds gallons of paint from U.S. Navy Surplus for pennies on the dollar. After the sale was a done deal, my father would routinely ask the proud new owner of " a fine reconditioned automobile" if they wanted any of the options.

Options on a used car they would inevitably ask?

"Certainly," my father would respond with an edge of surprise in his voice that the buyer would even ask that. "A trunk key, battery, heater, spare tire, they're all extras,' he would proclaim with a straight face.

For "good faith," and a display of his generosity, my father would sometimes throw in a free, but used, bumper jack.

You're probably thinking, "This is a joke. What kind of son would imply such things about his father?"

I assure you it is not a joke. And if Dad were here today, the beloved charlatan would consider this story a compliment and endorsement.

Learn more about this author, Timothy Benford.
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