Beige Regal Turbo

When I was selling Buicks was back in the day of the Regal Turbos and Grand Nationals; Badass car and limited production. They commanded a lot of money. we usually marked them up a few thousand at least over sticker and got it or we didn’t sell them.

I had an up one morning, she was in her forties, had bright red hair and a big smile, and she was obviously well to do. She was driving a fairly new Caddy and was dressed nice. She wanted to see a Regal Turbo. We didn’t have one yet, but one was scheduled to come in in a few days. This woman knew all the specs for the car, I knew them as well, but was amazed she knew so much about the car. She also lived in the same town and had decided she would only buy the car she bought from us. Her husband was a local contractor and she believed in keeping business at home. I told her I would call her when ours came in and set her up to pay considerably more than the MSRP.

We got our car, it was a white one I think, so I called her. She came in and looked at it and told me she was ready to buy but she wanted a beige car. I didn’t even know they had that color on a Turbo. But, she told me our competition in another close by town had one and she had driven it just that day. We called them to see if we could trade. Of course, they knew who my customer was so there wasn’t any way they were going to trade with me. There we no other cars in California that color.

My customer understood my plight when I told her I couldn’t get that car and assured me she would wait until I could get one like she wanted. I figured she would go buy the other guy’s car. And I didn’t think about it anymore. The locator didn’t show any beige Turbos coming in anywhere and I couldn’t switch her to my white one, so I basically wrote her off.

The dealer with the beige one called a few weeks later wanting to trade their beige car for another car we had. Because that wasn’t a very popular color the manager declined to trade, but I heard about it, so I called my customer. She was still in the market! She told me she would buy the car in a heartbeat. I told my boss and got a deposit from my customer and we got the car.

She bought the car, she was supremely happy, and she drove away. I’d see her every once in a while in for service. Years later, I was going into a real estate title company and saw a beige Regal Turbo in the parking lot. It stirred memories of my car deal. I sat down with the escrow officer, an attractive woman with red hair. And she had the same last name as my customer from all those years ago, (guessing about ten years).

So I asked if the Turbo in the parking lot was hers. She gave me a funny look, almost accusing like maybe she thought I was stalking her or something. She said yes, it was hers but was suspicious of how I would even ask that out of all the cars in the parking lot why I would think that car was hers. I told her I sold that car to a lady with the same last name as her brand new. I could see the worry melt out of her eyes and she said, “She’s my mom, she gave me the car a few years ago.”

It was nice to see that car still rolling, still in super nice shape, and in the same family. There is a great joy for a car salesman to see one of his deals out on the road, especially years later.