clueless Ford salesman

[frank55a]

I got my first Model A in April 1963 when I was in high school. It was pretty ratty but I loved it. I slopped a coat of red oxide primer on it with a brush, needless to say that did not help the appearance much. Shortly after school was out for the summer I started a job running parts for the local Chevy dealership. I was told to stay away from the front office and if not running parts stay in the back of the parts department out of sight. I was not given a parking place in the employees lot, so the only place I could find to park was a spot on the street near the front of the parts department. Three days into the job, I was summoned to the owners office. As a 16 year old kid, I was thinking "What did I do now?" I remember the owners words to this day, when I went into the owners office, he said, "Are you the one that owns that d**ned old Ford parked in front of my business? "Very timidly I answered, "Yes!" to which he said "I cannot tell you what to drive to work, you are not senior enough to have a parking place on the employees lot, and I will NOT have a Ford parked in front of my business!" Then he went on to say "Back in the loading dock area there are 3 parking places, 1 for the parts truck, 1 for my Corvette, and 1 empty space. You park your Ford in that space out of sight!" He further added "Here are the keys to my Corvette, at the end of the day I want you to move the Corvette out of the dock area, make a few passes through downtown to warm it up and park it in front of my office." As a side note, telling a 16 year old kid he must drive a Corvette through town to warm it up is the next thing to heaven. For the remaining year and a half that worked for the dealership there were only 2 people that had inside parking spaces out of the weather, one for the owners Corvette and the other for my Model A (parked next to the Corvette).