In Wheel Time Podcast: Your Go-To Automotive Talk Show · In Wheel Time Podcast | Automotive talk with Don Armstrong, Michael Marrs, and Jeff Dziekan

Lessons From A Life In Car Sales

·30 min·2 clips

Randy Pressgrove wrote his book after a driver cut him off, leading to a 100,000-word manuscript.

The setup is pure In Wheel Time. Don Armstrong tees up author Randy Pressgrove, trades a few jokes with the panel, and lets the book title do some of the work. Randy joins by audio only, which somehow fits. The segment has that loose shop-talk feel: sales floor memories, old commercials, and the cars people still get weirdly happy talking about. The book title gets the first laugh. Don asks where This Car Sucks came from, and Randy's life of wheelin' and dealin' turns into the way into the car business talk. Then the prices start doing the damage. Randy points to an average car around $50,000, tied back to Don's Lexus review and the smaller space for a true loss leader. Put that beside 1979 and it lands differently. His first new car sale was a 1977 Chrysler Newport for $5,800. Today's market feels about ten times heavier, and nobody has to dress that up. The Newport has its own pull too. Somebody asks whether Randy wishes he still had it, and he says it would be worth a ton now. That opens the door to the good kind of nostalgia, the kind with grease under it. Randy talks about why old machines like a Biscayne or a three-quarter-ton Chevrolet truck still bring people in. Then the commercials come back around. Dinah Shore's old Chevrolet line gets mentioned with a newer version, and the room knows exactly why it still hits their generation. Chrysler memories follow: late-1960s Plymouth ads, the Belvedere line, the GTX, and the muscle car wave that came after. The ending has a small sting. Plymouth had cool cars and ads people remember, but Plymouth itself is gone. Around the edges, the regular show business keeps rolling: live Saturday shows, new car reviews, driving destinations, Jeff's Car Culture, car news, cruise-ins, and racing days. The best part is the pileup: prices, brands, memories, and vanished nameplates all sharing the same folding-chair conversation.

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