
A FREEWHEELING INSIDER ACCOUNT OF THE BASTARDS, BANDITS, AND BOZOS OF AMERICA'S CAR BUSINESS-- AND WHAT YOU SHOULD REALLY KNOW BEFORE YOU BUY A CAR--FROM A FORTY-YEAR AUTO INDUSTRY VETERAN.
From the moment he joined a Memphis, Tennessee, dealership of Liberty Chrysler-Plymouth in 1979 as perhaps the only parts counterman in history with a graduate degree in Scottish medieval history, Randy Pressgrove has been a car guy.
In the ensuing four decades in sales and dealership development assignments across the world, he saw it all--from Chrysler and most of the industry's narrow escape from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1980s, to the 1990s revival of the VW Beetle, to the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), to the existential change brought on by the 2020s pandemic, and everything in between.
Written with an old-fashioned storyteller's panache, a wide-angle historical lens, and the rare vantage point of someone with experience in all the methods and madness of the car-buying process from the factory to the showroom, this book reveals:
- What to do and what not to do when buying a car (never get the extended warranty!)
- The automobile business life at the dealership, customer, lonely manufacturer's rep, and even the finance company levels
- The most memorable and vexing challenges facing those who've plied the auto trade-- from great leaders and turnaround artists to bumbling misfits and sleazy salesmen--since its birth more than one hundred years ago
This Car Sux! is part hilarious and compulsively readable memoir, part Kitchen Confidential for cars, and part epic saga of the automobile industry as it evolved from a vibrant and quintessentially American institution of the '50s, '60s, and '70s to one today that is beset on all sides by cutthroat competition, scandal, and existential technological disruption.
RANDY PRESSGROVE is an automotive industry expert with more than forty years of experience, including sales and dealership development assignments across the world--from Memphis, Tennessee, to Saudi Arabia--with Mazda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, and Kia. He holds a graduate degree in Scottish medieval history from the University of St Andrews, which he has not found to be professionally useful. He lives in New Jersey.
"In THIS CAR SUX! Randy Pressgrove does an exemplary job of colorfully describing the process of getting an automobile from manufacturing through to the brand delivering it to dealerships and into the driveway of its new owner. . . You too may find yourself intrigued, curious, and perhaps tempted, as many of us have been, to wonder what it would be like to be a part of the dynamic story of the modern auto industry."
--JOHN SZYMANSKI, VICE-PRESIDENT, HOLMAN AUTOMOTIVE GROUP
"Randy Pressgrove is our old-school car-guy guide to this strange and disappearing world, full of war stories and warnings of what to look out for when you go in search of that new car smell."
--DAN ALBERT, AUTHOR OF ARE WE THERE YET?: THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE PAST, PRESENT, AND DRIVERLESS
With sharp insight and a storyteller's flair, Pressgrove dishes out the good, the bad, and the 'did-that-really-happen?' of an industry that's been both roaring and sputtering over the decades. If you've ever bought a car, sold a car, or been baffled by the whole process, this book is your backstage pass to the automotive circus."
--DON HUGHES, FORMER EXECUTIVE, VOLKSWAGEN OF AMERICA