Our little obit on Toronto car dealer John Cox a couple of weeks ago in the print edition generated some warm memories from various people within the industry.
It seems John was a great guy to work for.
Either that or those who don't think so are holding their peace!
One particularly interesting story came from a then-young telephone systems salesman who had been assigned "car dealerships" as his territory.
He cold-called Cox, who invited him into his office, offered coffee, chit-chatted for a while.
Then Cox excused himself, saying he needed to attend to something, and would be right back.
Minutes turned into tens of minutes, which turned into half a hour.
The newbie sales rep eventually went back to the receptionist and mentioned that he was awaiting Mr. Cox's return.
"Oh, he's left for the day!" came the cheery reply.
Seriously miffed, the sales rep left.
Still, this was his territory, so he went back the next day.
"Oh, come on back in," beamed Cox.
The rep was about to go into his spiel, but began by asking if Cox had forgotten about him the day before.
"No no," said Cox. "I do this with all new sales people. If they're good, they'll come back. You came back. No need to go into the pitch; I'll take whatever you're selling."
So the salesman made his sale, learned a great lesson, and eventually ended up selling - cars!
Like I said, we'll not see the likes of John Cox again.
His son Brad also coughed up this photo (below) which (I think, based on the odd lighting) was taken in the reflection of the privacy glass in a stretched Rolls-Royce Limousine that Cox had taken three auto journalists out in for a wee picnic lunch. (Yes, that IS in fact a dead squirrel on my upper lip...).
Among the memorable moments of that drive was when we were heading back downtown on the Don Valley Parkway after lunch. As you can see, we were all quite Natalie Attired (as the old radio joke used to go), and generally behaving ourselves quite well.
By our standards anyway.
(That is in fact Perrier. At least, in my glass.)
A quite attractive blond woman passed us in her white Toyota Supra. (Yes, all these years later I remember details like that. Can't remember what I had for breakfast, but...).
As she passed, she gave us the John McEnroe one half of the victory sign salute.
Never did figure out what that was all about.
Maybe she preferred Bentleys.
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Posted by: cheap cars for sale | November 27, 2009 at 04:48 AM