A blog is kind of like a newspaper column. Posts pile up as they're written, by date, one atop the other. Over time it becomes more difficult to find certain articles. A book organizes content by chapter and subject, but a blog is more like one long, unordered scroll.
Thus, I've created this index as a Table of Contents. The titles below are links that will take you directly to the story.
Pete Fraser may have been an experienced horse trader, but he never ventured into automobile sales. As his son Murray wrote, “My dad was perhaps not a good businessman. He said after a horse trade, or whatever, that he liked the other fellow to feel he had gotten a good deal, too.”1 Too honest for his own good? So be it.
Like horse traders, car salesmen must convince customers that they are trustworthy. This means fighting a long-standing stereotype that they are anything but. Their negative reputation has lasted for decades and remains today.
Poster from JFK’s 1960 presidential campaign.2
Wikipedia agrees:
It is a common theme for the “used car salesman” to be cast as a shyster in popular culture. The used car salesman trope is “modern culture’s epitome of the sleazy, two-faced, greedy capitalist out to cheat honest people of their hard-earned money by tricking them into buying damaged or inferior goods.” […] Joe Biden Sr. left automobile sales for real estate when his son Joe Biden Jr. was elected to the United States Senate in 1972, because “he didn’t want a United States senator to have a used-car salesman for a dad.”3
It’s official: politicians and used-car salesmen are among the least trusted professions. The Financial Post reported on an Ipsos study that polled Canadians in 2021.4 Car salespeople were the second lowest on the trust ranking, and only owners of social media platforms scored lower. More recently, politicians tied with social media types at the bottom of the Ipsos Global Trustworthy Index of 2024, bumping car salesmen from the list.5
In the U.S., the situation is similar. An automotive industry website acknowledged their PR problem, and urged sales staff to be “transparent, connected, and honest,” admitting:
Car sellers are among the least-trusted of all professionals, just slightly ahead of members of Congress. A recent Gallup survey showed that 91% of people have zero trust in the car buying process.6
Enter Ralph Williams.
Ralph Williams, “the most dynamic dealer in the industry,” opened the Pan Am Motors dealership in Winnipeg in 1970. The site at Milt Stegall Road and Ellice Avenue is now a Starbucks coffee shop. 7
This ad called Ralph Williams a “terrific personality” and “one of the most astute, most experienced car dealers in the world.”8
It was an era when car dealers competed for business any way they could.
Gimmicks worked.9
The Winnipeg Free Press introduced Ralph Williams as the California car king, but that title really belongs to his famed competitor, Cal Worthington. The Television Bureau of Advertising deemed Cal “the best-known car dealer pitchman in television history.”
No stunt or gimmick was too outlandish for fearless Cal. A decorated WWII bomber pilot, he considered barnstorming a piece of cake.10
Cal’s TV spots commanded American west coast airwaves from the 1960s through the 1990s. His “My Dog Spot” ads parodied those of Ralph Williams and his fast-talking pitchman Chick Lambert, whose commercials included his German Shepherd, Storm.
Each commercial opened with the line, “Here’s Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!”—but “Spot” was never a dog. […] Animals featured as “Spot” included a killer whale from SeaWorld, lion, elephant, goose, bull, various snakes, rhinoceros, skunk, bear, a roller-skating chimpanzee, carabao, and hippopotamus. Even NFL player Deacon Jones once played “Spot” and sang the jingle. Worthington sourced animals from local circuses and professional handlers in the Hollywood area.11
“Worthington Ford in Long Beach to close” [1:15]12
In Winnipeg, a smiling Ralph Williams advertised often in print and on television, and his Pan-Am Motors dealership on Ellice Avenue was open until 11 pm six days a week.
Ralph Williams, laughing all the way to the bank.13 As an American with several dealerships there, it is hard to know how often he was actually in Winnipeg.
Pitchman Chick Lambert was good at his job, and secure enough to tease his boss in unaired gag commercials with foul language.
“Ralph Williams Aurora North” [1:17]14
Lambert knew Ralph Williams—and his tactics—better than most.
American Motors Corporation (AMC) was founded on May 1, 1954 when Nash-Kelvinator Corporation merged with the Hudson Motor Car Company. (Yes, that Kelvinator, the refrigerator company that merged with Nash in 1936.) In 1979 Renault bought a stake in the company, and in 1987 AMC was acquired by Chrysler.15
Known for some original but plain, even ugly vehicles (think: Pacer, Gremlin), AMC could never compete with the Big Three—GM, Chrysler and Ford. But one model is worth noting: the Javelin.
The AMC Javelin is an American front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-door hardtop automobile manufactured by American Motors Corporation (AMC) across two generations, 1968 through 1970 and 1971 through 1974 model years. The car was positioned and marketed in the pony car market segment.
Styled by Dick Teague, the Javelin was available in a range of trim and engine levels, from economical pony car to muscle car variants.16
The term “pony car” originated with the Ford Mustang. While still sporty and agile, these American compact cars are smaller, lighter and not as powerful as muscle cars.
We recognize this 1970 Javelin—and its owner. It was the first new car he bought. Dad loved this car. Mom? Not so much.
AMC soon rolled out the SST and AMX variations of the handsome Javelin that gave it a tougher, muscle car look.
A handsome 1970 SST Javelin in familiar Bayshore Blue metallic.17
The sportier two-seat AMX cost more than the Javelin but introduced even more muscle car features and challenged the competition in races.
“1970 AMC AMX 9266-CHA for sale” [2:44]18
The regular Javelin had a back seat and more room overall, while the powerful, two-seat AMX could boast of speed records on the track.19
Murray Fraser bought his brand new Javelin on September 9, 1970, the same week this ad aired. The price was $2649 (incl. $107 in tax), less $400 for the 1963 Rambler he traded in.20
Dad must have been happy with his Javelin. His next car was a 1978 AMC Concord.
But others were not so impressed with Ralph Williams and his pitchman Chick Lambert. Bill Watson, a contributor on a car forum, elaborates:
Ralph had Chrysler and AMC dealerships across North America. In Canada he had the contract for the AMC dealerships in the largest cities. Those sites were owned by AMC Canada so when Ralph was eased out of the dealerships AMC Canada took charge. He used to advertise used car specials with his right hand man (forget his name) and his dog. Also lots of corny humour. Ralph would have a special deal, say, on a slightly used one year old Maverick sedan. People would show up to see the car and it was nowhere to be seen. Turns out the commercials were shot in LA and used all across North America. When that news came out Ralph’s business began to slide.21
Ralph Williams fought the law and the law won. California’s Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Williams’ dealer’s license at least twice, but that was not the end of his legal troubles.
Williams lost an appeal in a State of Washington case against him in 1976 accusing him of “unfair and deceptive practices in the operation of an automobile business.”22 Williams’ own TV commercials provided evidence for several charges.
The courts noted a string of violations, including bait and switch tactics, “false and deceptive” warranty claims, trade-in values, credit terms, down payments, and “unconscionable prices.” Violations included lies about the condition of used cars: “Many of the cars possessed mechanical defects, body damage and unusually high mileage. The advertisements concealed these defects.”
A fee of $200 to $500 for “dealer preparation” of its cars was only revealed and charged to buyers after their purchase. In truth, minimal dealer preparations (if any at all) were done.
It didn’t stop there. The complaints included:
obtaining possession of a customer’s automobile prior to or during negotiations and then refusing to return it if the negotiations were unsuccessful; failing to account to the original buyers for excess money received in resales of repossessed cars; and failure to refund to customers unearned insurance premiums.
The initial court case found Williams and his companies liable for $578,500.96, plus attorney fees of $389,258.20. Williams was also ordered to place $142,000 in a trust account for “restoring consumers’ property” in his possession. The courts concluded that “Williams was personally responsible for many of the unlawful acts and practices” and his advertising was “intentionally deceptive, misleading and patently false.”
“Ralph Williams Bayshore Chrysler-Plymouth 1968” [1:32]23
Kidding or not, Chick and his dog Storm were wise to Ralph Williams.
The dishonest practices continued even after charges were brought. Crying foul, Williams refused to comply with court orders and appealed the case. The appeal court deemed Williams’ flagrant refusal to comply contemptuous, and added that he and his companies “secreted and manipulated assets to keep them out of the jurisdiction of the courts of this state.”
The law closed in. In December 1970 Williams’ North West dealership in Seattle was shut down by the State Department of Revenue after he failed to submit certain excise taxes customers had paid.
A 1989 Los Angeles Times article noted Williams’ long fight with the State of Washington, and reported that, “He still owes consumers in that state millions of dollars awarded in a 1972 consumer fraud judgment against him and his company.”24
The same article mentioned a current investigation involving Ralph Williams and a Texas dealership:
[T]he program involved citing a highly inflated finance charge by programming a computer to start compiling interest as much as a year earlier than the actual effective date of the loan. The price would be adjusted so that the monthly payments were agreeable to the customer, but the amount included for finance charges would be hundreds, even thousands of dollars higher than would really be paid to the bank. The dealer would be able to pocket that extra money and would hide it in the final paper work by disguising it as fees for dealer protection plans and other add-ons.
Ultimately, Ralph Williams left the airways, and the industry. He retired and died in Dallas, Texas.
Luckily, Murray Fraser was an experienced and astute car buyer who paid for his cars in cash. He knew dealers’ tricks and drove a hard bargain.
