My Huge Automotive Dealership Opportunity Missed

Passport1

Passport1

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True story,

Way back in late 1969 I was a line mechanic at a VW dealer in a northern Chicago suburb. Had a friend named Arthur who was a casual car guy but a shrewd, hungry entrepreneur. He approached me with an offer to become a partner in his latest business venture. Needed $20K to purchase a new car line franchise, Mazda. It was an unknown Japanese brand coming to the US and they were building a dealer network. My buy in cost would be half, $10K. I was making $5000/ year and barely had bus fare. Before backing out he showed me their product line. The Cosmo, a rotary engined jewel. Just one car with a promise of more in the near future. Mazda became a nascent US import car company in April, 1970.

Lacking my support, Arthur scrapped the idea, moved to Mexico City and married a pretty señorita with business connections. We kept in touch from time-to-time. He made a fortune importing Japanese colored TVs and microwaves to Mexico.

Oh what shoulda/coulda have been.


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WE have 2 Mazda's and if I could have gotten one when I was younger, I probably would still have it and be driving it still. Ours are easy to repair and hold up amazingly.
 
Passport1 said:
True story,

Way back in late 1969 I was a line mechanic at a VW dealer in a northern Chicago suburb. Had a friend named Arthur who was a casual car guy but a shrewd, hungry entrepreneur. He approached me with an offer to become a partner in his latest business venture. Needed $20K to purchase a new car line franchise, Mazda. It was an unknown Japanese brand coming to the US and they were building a dealer network. My buy in cost would be half, $10K. I was making $5000/ year and barely had bus fare. Before backing out he showed me their product line. The Cosmo, a rotary engined jewel. Just one car with a promise of more in the near future. Mazda became a nascent US import car company in April, 1970.

Lacking my support, Arthur scrapped the idea, moved to Mexico City and married a pretty señorita with business connections. We kept in touch from time-to-time. He made a fortune importing Japanese colored TVs and microwaves to Mexico.

Oh what shoulda/coulda have been.


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If it makes you feel better we could take turns slapping you ???? 😁
 
My parents bought their first Japanese car, a 1989 323, from a combo VW-Mazda dealer. I've run into a bunch in my travels! It seems like VW didn't mind.
 
Same thing happened to my dad. 1980s. He worked for a large well known frozen food company that was bought by even a bigger one we all know. One of executives high up wanted to start a food/snack company. He offered my dad 50% of the stock. The guy was hell bent at competing with the company my dad worked at. Thought he is way overboard pushing starting this company, to much of a zealot for my dad . So he said No. 20 years later the guy sold the company for $900 million. And the other guy who he hire instead of my dad was still there I guess. Later I said to my dad, you do know those are the people you want in a start up. He had the drive to win and succeed, and he did. Just not with my dad. My dad would of like to do it , but he was never a guy that money drove him. If he had the money, he still would of bought another Chevy Impala with posi traction and an AM radio and crank door handles. And I would be guy on here with multiple cars with 500 to 1000 hp and a couple of track cars. With streetable road race setup WRC Hyundai i20 rally car. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Mazda had a kind of rocky start through the 70’s - the rotary engines were fast, but had problems.
Mazda didn’t ‘get good’ until the 1977 GLC came out - they were everywhere in the early 80’s.
 
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