Thread time! For a while now, I've been savaging Tesla and, more specifically, CEO Elon Musk because he's OBVIOUSLY a Bond villain.
However, some Tesla fans have said I'm being unfair so in the full interest of balance I want to talk about the one thing Tesla got right.
First, we all have to do the Time Warp back to 2005. It was a banner year when George W Bush was President again for some God-forsaken reason. The Dot Com bubble bust was in the past, and the 2008 real estate bubble bust was still years in the future.
I was a wide-eyed 25yr old living in Dunedin, Florida. One town up from Clearwater, world center of Scientology before I had any idea what that fucking meant. Also there was a dive bar that did jello-wrestling on Thursdays. Getting off track.
I moved to Florida from Wisconsin at 22 on a lark and a promise of a 6-figure job which failed to solidify because people far above us in the company were having sex with each other without the knowledge or consent of their spouses. So the whole thing sorta went POOF!
Anyway, now here I am jobless in Florida without a support network or prospects, "Laid off" by a company that imploded overnight so good luck with drawing unemployment. So, I fall back on my strengths and start a new job search.
I love cars, you guys. LOVE THEM.
I've already spent some time in the sales trenches going door-to-door selling Medicare Supplements. It sucks. Like, bad. But that's how you build a resume. What's my next move? I can sell cars. I should sell Fords. Done. Application submitted that day.
Hired two days later. Maybe three. Honestly the interim was kinda a blur. Regardless, I am now the newest salesman for Freedom Ford in Clearwater, Florida.
Back then, Freedom Ford was a high-end Ford dealer. Our showroom floor included Saleen Mustangs.
Next door to us was a Lotus dealership. Tiny little sportscars in the finest British tradition of removing weight instead of increasing horsepower.
Between both dealers was a curvy residential street that, while it was never explicitly stated, wasn't monitored by the police.
Friends. We did "Test Drives" back there. Featherweight English cars vs overpowered American brutes. Sometimes the same customer would be on both sides in the same day.
It was glorious.
But, as some of you will remember, 05/06 were something else entirely for the Big 3. Years, decades of mismanagement were catching up. Quality and reliability had slipped. Japanese and European makers were overtaking.
So, "Employee Pricing" became the new hotness.
The eventual promise from GM, Chrysler, and Ford was you could walk onto a lot and buy a new car for the same price as any employee or family member.
Sweet! That sounds great for everyone.
Except not everyone.
When I sold new cars, my commission was 30% of the final sale price over MSRP. Not 30% of the sale. 30% of whatever the difference was between MSRP and the final number.
"Employee Price" meant everyone bought those cars at the same cost the dealer paid for them.
So, regardless of the amount of money that changed hands, we made exactly 30% of nothing. Which, if you're following along at home, is nothing. We were kicked $100 per new car sale in sympathy while the dealer was paid in volume bonuses from the manufacturer we never saw.
Enter the 2005 Ford GT.
A challenger appears.
This was, and I'm not exaggerating here because you all know I'm not prone to overstatement, a religious experience for me.
The original Ford GT40 was a world-devastating earthquake of a car. An absolute force of nature sent from God to put Italy on notice.
In 2005, after a very secretive development process, @Ford released a new generation of the mid-engine GT onto the world.
Its MSRP was $157,000. There weren't a ton of them. Every dealership was allotted one.
The dealership I worked for, located less than three miles from the Philadelphia Phillies Spring Training facilities, sold their allotted GT for $300,000 to a rookie player who'd just signed his first Major League contract.
Can you guess where this is going?
After selling their only GT to a fucking child who'd just been handed a suitcase of money bigger than he would ever see again in his life, the owners of the dealership got the idea lodged in their brains that everyone would be stupid enough to pay double sticker price.
So, the ownership of Freedom Ford, Clearwater Florida, went on a buying spree. They hunted down dealerships in little cities and towns where no one could afford the $157K sticker for a fun car and offered to buy them out. For over sticker. By a lot.
Enter, me.
I'd been drawn to this particular dealership because they had not just Saleen Mustangs, but a GT on the floor. I stared at that car, pouring over the details of its 5.4L V8, Supercharged engine. Dry sump oil system. "Ship-in-a-bottle" fuel tank.
I was very lucky one afternoon when a local and very successful contractor (who very quickly got absolutely fucked by Trump Tower Tampa, different thread) showed up on my lot, wanting to buy "my" GT.
"Right this way, sir," I said.
My customer bought the car, MSRP $157K, for $212K without even opening a door. Tax, title, license, the final check out the door was $225K.
My cut of that $53,000 markup over the $157,000 MSRP?
$500. Leveraged against my draw in a month I made $100 per new vehicle sale.
Why? Remember I said my take was 30% of any markup over MSRP. That was the contract we signed.
Except that somehow didn't cover when our ownership was so fucking stupid they went out to spend money like drunken sailors.
They lost money on that +$53K sale. A lot of it.
And they had FIVE MORE GTs they bought at ridiculously overinflated prices right behind the one I sold. Don't know if they ever sold another.
I left not long after. But before I did, new "management" showed up, in central Florida, with some very clearly New Jersey accents.
My whole reason for telling you this story old enough to be a Junior in High School at this point is the entire concept of a dealership network is a zombie shambling through the graveyard.
It serves nothing and no one but itself. Tesla, to their credit, recognized that.
Does anyone want to hear the PS to that sale?
Okay. Heard you.
Here's the postscript.
My dealership never got a permit for an underground fuel tank because of its proximity to the ocean.
So, as a result, every car we sold, we had to drive down about two miles to the nearest gas station to fill the tank for delivery.
Every, car.
So, because of this simply insane and irresponsible loophole built into the law by people who thought they were doing good by the environment, for approximately four miles of Highway 19, a 25yr old, power-mad lunatic was gifted one of the most powerful supercars on the planet.
I really want to put the emphasis on the lunatic part, there. I'm bad now, at 42. I hit 100 mph like three hours ago. Me at 25 was a whole other fucking species.
So, 25yr old Patrick was in a car he just sold for $225,000 and made jack shit on, on a gas run for a millionaire (he was very pleasant and professional, btw).
I know what a 2005 Ford GT sounds like at Wide Open Throttle.
Heaven sounds like that.
