Tales From Dishonest Used Car Dealership

In reply to G_Body_Man:

Ah, I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.

Hey, my uncle is the service manager at that NC Machinery one mile away!

(goes back to searching the googles for repair shop info)

Since I can't say it outright, I'll give everyone searching a little bit of a hint. It's in Bellevue, and you have to use the wayback machine to access the old website. Given the uniqueness of some of the products (Zap Xebra, grey market Smart cars), a couple of quick google searches should point you in the right direction.

Keith Tanner wrote:

The0retical wrote:

"There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes.

I just about snorted yogurt out my nose.

That's a Hunter S Thompson quote, IIRC.

Yes it is.

Too weird to live, too rare to die. Or was it the other way around? Either way, the good doctor wrote it.

Brett_Murphy wrote: This led down a rabbit hole. There are lots of good stories there. I liked this one, because of the reference to Agnes Nitt.

Oh wow. I'm in love.

And this is long before I got to "There is a way to pronounce ‘sir’ so it very clearly means ‘berkeley you sideways with a weedwhacker.’ "

Knurled wrote: Oh wow. I'm in love. And this is long before I got to "There is a way to pronounce ‘sir’ so it very clearly means ‘berkeley you sideways with a weedwhacker.’ "

Her stories are great, I'd love to sit down with her and her engineer over a beer or two.

The0retical wrote:

Jerry From LA wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote:

The0retical wrote:

"There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes.

I just about snorted yogurt out my nose.

That's a Hunter S Thompson quote, IIRC.

You recalled correctly.

Huh, I've never read the book and only watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas once. I don't recall most of it. I'm more of a Douglas Adams man myself.

I think it's actually spoken in the voiceover in Fear and Loathing.

I'm a DNA fan as well, they're not mutually exclusive. If you want a real Adams experience, find a way to get the Bureaucracy text adventure going. Perfectly suited to the medium.

G_Body_Man wrote: Since I can't say it outright, I'll give everyone searching a little bit of a hint. It's in Bellevue, and you have to use the wayback machine to access the old website. Given the uniqueness of some of the products (Zap Xebra, grey market Smart cars), a couple of quick google searches should point you in the right direction.

Pretty interesting reading the Seattle Times puff piece on that dealership when they started importing and selling Smarts.

Combined with reading the old dealership's site on the Web Archive and the reviews for the "new" one, I'd say they are pretty typical for most dealership folks.

Their names are, um, very Germanic

These are GREAT, but I'm afraid I'm missing some because of the quotes in this thread. Is there a list of them? The layout in Redit is killing me.

DrBoost wrote: These are GREAT, but I'm afraid I'm missing some because of the quotes in this thread. Is there a list of them? The layout in Redit is killing me.

Click on the username and you'll see more of their posts.

Yes, the Reddit layout is a bit basic, but its pretty straightforward and its not like they are likely to change it.

There are alternative Reddit readers and apps available to help extend or improve the functionality of Reddit.

Did the dealership have the word "Green" in its name?

In reply to Brett_Murphy:

That's the one I was leaning towards

I read through the whole saga. What started as funny, has left me feeling sad.

The Stash was great!

Brett_Murphy wrote: Did the dealership have the word "Green" in its name?

Well you see, The Purple Car Company would have been a really friggin dumb name

I see what you did there.

I believe it's here TGCC is often assiciated wit TDI Motors - wonder if it's the same company/daughter company ?

Perhaps anyone has some photos from the old days, since street view has surely been updated ?

EDIT: Found their old facebook page www.facebook.com/GreenCarCompany/ - not updated since 2013 and info reads "shut down permanently"

In the photos section there's a tall lady by the smart - wonder if it's The Amazon :)

In reply to Owee:

The TDI motors page talks about their diesel van conversions, so I think they're both part of TGCC.

In reply to Owee:

Caption reads "Susan Fahnestock, one of the founders and many brightly covered Smart Cars"

Hi, sorry for the "three year old digup" but I found another  location of the "Dishonest Used Car Dealership". Since it is open up till this day - this must be their current site - so they moved from the previous location mentioned in my previous post (btw the adjacent building - the loans - had a fire and was torn down - according the Google street view from 2018-2019). 

While browsing trough the results for the "tdi motors" in Seattle area I found this location.

When you scroll through all of the opinions - one person Winston Ray (from about 4 years ago) mentions Susan in his comment:

We bought a camper van (Eurovan) and couldn't be happier. Susan and crew were Amazing!! Thank you. Love ya and love our van!! Gladys and Ray

Additionally - there's a "Green Car Clinic" in the same building - and the tel. no. is the same as the TDI Motors :)

http://greencarclinic.com/about-us/