I approached the owner of the local GM dealership, Bud Koch, because I heard that they needed a replacement tow truck driver. I had had never driven a tow truck before, but I had watched them pull some of my cars out of various situations...so I felt somewhat qualified. Bud and I went way back to the beginning of my driving days...he and his son Ron sold me several vehicles...with the credit check generally being a wink and a nudge.
When I was in Bud's office talking about the tow truck job, he did what any super salesman would do, he upped the ante in his favor. His words were,
"Mike, why don't you just buy the whole tow truck business instead of working for me?"
Awesome deal for him, cash in pocket...for me...not exactly what I had planned when I got up that day.
Of course I had an easy out...No money.
Ah, but that doesn't stop a pro from getting what he wants...oh no.
Bud declares the fact that I have no money to be a non-issue. He offered financing through a somewhat tricky deal with GMAC ( the GM dealer financing division ) So for a small monthly payment of 351 bucks a month, I could be a tow truck driving kind of guy.
It had been months since my PVI application went in, and I was thinking that I somehow didn't get in...or they lost the paperwork..whatever.
I signed on a lot of dotted lines and instead of getting the job, I got the whole company. Yippee! This is the prime example of the old saying/maxim...
" If you don't choose your own path...the universe will choose one for you...and you might not like it "
And of course...should I even bother to tell you that the acceptance package came from PVI the next week.
Of course it did.
But now I owed 25,000 bucks to GMAC...and Bud wasn't going to take the truck back. So..no aviation repair career, and off I go to pull people out of ditches...21 years old..
"Super-Tow" was born
 |
| 1981 Chevy Cheyenne I ton 4x4, 454 engine, auto trans, twin boom, twin winch Oberg deck |
The guy who drove the truck previously, gave me a few lessons on hooking up cars, pulling with the winches, and the really fun part...breaking into locked cars with a slim-jim.
One thing that I didn't take into account ( OK, one of the dozens of things )..was the reaction of the competition. Glen Kraus, owned K&E towing...I went to school with his sons and daughter. He was pissed. Same with the guy from Halfmoon Bay, Ken Clarkson he wasn't a very happy camper that some guy bought the dealerships truck to go all entrepreneurial. They individually took me aside to lay down their "laws" on how things were going to work.
A couple of things worked in my favor..one was that the RCMP ( police ) divided up the territories for responses to accidents. That made things a bit simpler. Cleaning up after car accidents was great money and interesting. This was in the pre-cell phone days. So the RCMP in Vancouver would phone me directly at home to go to the scene. If I was out, the call went to my answering service at the Sechelt Taxi office. From there they would page me or try to call on the CB radio. The pager system then, was like this... the answering service would dial a number that would generate a signal to my beeper. There was no information on the beeper...It was just a notice to call the answering service to get the info.
The other factor in the competition game was that I knew most of the guys that owned the repair shops, and they were happy to send business my way. The owner of the Esso station made it even easier, good old Gene Brehm kept it simple..."You bring cars in...I pay you cash "
One of the most interesting angles of the business was doing re-possessions for GMAC. This was during the recession of the early 80's and tons of people were struggling with house and car payments. I 'll always remember that the GMAC reps name was Dean Ratzlaf ( rat's laugh ) He would negotiate with the car owners for the recovery of the vehicle that they couldn't finish paying for. Dean would give me a list of cars to go and pick up from various driveways and carports. The very first one, first one ever...was a doozy.
The guy had agreed to surrender his 81 Chevy Citation ( piece of crap even when new ). The keys were going to be in the ashtray. Better still, they guy was renting from my sister and brother in-law, so I knew exactly were to go. Easy. I drive to Gibsons and pull into the driveway. The car was unlocked, but the keys were nowhere in site. I crawled right under the front seat, searching for the keys that were supposed to be there.
A voice called out .
" Whatcha doin' there?"
I didn't look up...couldn't really... being jammed between the front seat and steering wheel.
"I'm looking for a set of keys that are supposed to be here...I'm from GMAC...Dean sent me"
"I don't think you want to do that" the voice announced.
I pulled myself out of the car to ask why...the answer was right there in front of me.
He had a rifle pointed at me.
"I think you should just leave this car where it is"
I tried to reason with him ( as I was retreating to my truck )...but he wasn't too interested in the paperwork or making a phone call to my boss. No sense in getting shot for a few bucks.
When I told Dean, he just laughed and gave me a bunch more addresses to go visit. He didn't even blink. My first high adrenalin repo was the next day..
Mr. 81 Citation was at work up on an industrial roofing job...Dean talked to him, while I went around the back and hoisted his car and took off at top speed. When the roofer saw his car go by, he started throwing tools and whatever he could get his hands on. Yippee.. ride em cowboy.
Here's a lesson for you. When you buy a vehicle, get a lien check done. Always. You want to see if the seller owes anybody money on the vehicle.
I repossessed a ladies car after she paid a guy cash for it. The problem was that he owed 4000 bucks on it to the finance company. She told GMAC to go piss up a rope, that it wasn't her problem. It became her problem when I took it out of the Sechelt Legion parking lot while she was inside nursing her drink. Bye Bye car.
Most of the re-possessed cars were absolutely beat by the time that I got them. In those days it took up to 8-9 months or more after the last payment before it was time for the "hook" to go and bring it in. Missing parts, different wheels and tires, stereos ripped out, motors drained of oil...pretty much the works. Most people gave them up without a fuss. Some people tried a little harder to avoid the inevitable.
I picked up two vehicles on separate occasions in the Langdale ferry terminal, trying to get off the Coast with the car. One guy hid his car under a pile of branches in his backyard. One guy who really went out of his way to avoid the GMAC guy, parked three vehicles in front of the car that was supposed to be returned. Not a serious issue....I towed them all away, until I got the one I wanted. And the others were left at the compound at the GM dealer...pay the bill to get them back.
The RCMP were a different breed back then, especially the guys who stayed on the Coast for a bit. They were friendly and generally not looking to cause anymore trouble than was absolutely required. I learned their system for running "off the books". Instead of getting a police call from the Vancouver office, I'd get a call from an individual cop from the Sechelt office or a payphone. This was always interesting. It usually meant that someone had made a mistake with a police car. Several times I got the call in the middle of the night to recover a cruiser from the rhubarb patch. Usually it was when they were bored...so they would go out to a quiet stretch of road and practise their hand-brake 180 turns. 50% of the time that involved them sliding into a ditch. Minor damage, a bit of mud tossed around.
One of my favorites was when a cop chased a guy who was riding a motorcycle up a long, dirt road hill. The bike rider dumped the motorcycle and ran into the forest. the cop pulled up and jumped out of his car and chased after the guy. After a bit of a fuss, the guy gave up and walked out to the road in handcuffs. The bad part was that the police cruiser was gone. No where in sight. Somebody stolen his car!
Or...when he got out of the car, he didn't put in fully into "Park"...and it rolled away....down the hill. A long ways down the hill. Until it came to a bend in the road...where the cruiser left the road and fell over the bank. I met two police cars in Sechelt and they guided me to the spot. When we got there it actually took a while to find the right location in the wee hours of the night. Even then. the car was so far down in the bush, you could only see the shiny bits in the flashlight beam.
Another awesome day was when a few locals broke into the South Coast Ford dealership and got a hold of all the keys for the cars on the lot. They got a bunch of friends to come and help themselves to to dozens of cars and trucks. They spent the night joy riding around town and then leaving them when they got stuck, or ran out of gas. In the morning, the RCMP called me to go a round up all of the cars as they were found. Every hour or so. I'd get a new list of cars and locations.Good for me, bad for the dealer.
to be continued....
No comments:
Post a Comment