Bob, who will be a regular contributor to The Car Magazine, has been in the business more than 30 years selling cars and in a variety of other business roles.
He entered into the business, following his father and three uncles who worked for Chrysler Canada in Windsor. Bob became the automotive equivalent of an Army brat because Chrysler transferred his father throughout the country in various jobs.
His father moved back to Windsor when Bob was in the 11th grade. He was 6-foot-7 and starred for his school in basketball and then took his talents to St. Mary’s University in Halifax. There were no professional sports teams in the city at that time and St. Mary’s basketball players were like celebrities. He received a free apartment off campus and money for working in jobs and didn’t have to show up for work. A son of one of the alumni loaned him a 1989 Acura Legend 5-speed coupe.
But he began partying “like a young stupid kid away from home for the first time” and essentially squandered his opportunity. He returned home humbled after his first year and his father was not impressed.
“I went from absolute hero to absolute zero in the span of two weeks,” he said. “It was a complete nightmare.”
Bob enrolled in the University of Windsor far away from where he lived and had to take a city bus to school, which took about an hour.
He decided to find himself a job that would give him a company car and adjust his school schedule.
He grabbed the local newspaper and looked at the classified section and saw a job for a car salesman at a Jeep dealership that offered a demo as an incentive. He applied and because of his family name, the dealership hired him. It was 1990, interest rates were high and cars were not selling.
“You couldn’t have got a walrus to take a job as a car salesman, but I didn’t know that,” he said.
Bob pointed to a red five-speed Jeep Comanche Eliminator as the demo he wanted and put a dealer plate on it. The next day a prominent local lawyer was his first customer and Bob got lucky with the sale on an aged unit and got a bonus of $600, which was huge back then.
He figured he could make so much money selling cars, he quit school. But back then he described the car business like the island of misfit toys.
“Not many people unless their dad owned a dealership grew up dreaming of being a car salesman,” Bob said. “They did it out of some kind of personal necessity like I did. Nobody would hire them, there’s no other choice, so you get a job selling cars. That’s kind of how it used to be. That’s how most of the guys in the business today that are super successful got their start, just by kind of stumbling into it.”
He became a top salesperson at that dealership and three years later moved to a bigger Chrysler store and worked as a Fleet Manager, and ended up selling the first cars Enterprise Rent-A-Car bought when it began Canadian operations. That led to an offer from another dealership, three years later, and he discovered he could make more on trade-ins if he shipped them to the U.S. In 1999, married and with a four-month old baby, he decided to incorporate his own business exporting vehicles wholesale on a dealer-to-dealer level. But the financial crisis in 2008 wiped him out. He then moved into the commercial consumer finance space and eventually moved back into brokering cars, starting South Ontario Auto Remarketing (SOAR).
Chrysler had started voiding warranties on vehicles intended for sale outside of the original market, so similar what he’d done throughout his career he came up with a solution. He worked with insurance companies and sold them on the idea of creating replacement warranties. He ran into roadblocks but eventually found a partner and created Can-Am Warranty. His reputation in the business in import-export space rose and he was contracted by Tricor Auto Group, the biggest dealer group in Canada, to build and run an export division.
He did this for 2½ years before leaving to start a new business in May as Co-Founder of AutoAuction.com. It is dedicated to bringing transparency and accountability to the auto auction industry, serving as a critical resource for dealers, consignors and buyers. It provides comprehensive, unbiased reviews and ratings of auto auctions, advocating for fair practices and helping dealers resolve arbitration claims.
To learn more about Bob and his automotive businesses, visit BobManor.com
Perry Lefko is the Content Manager of The Car Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to forward any story suggestions or comments.