It is the tip of an period for certainly one of America’s most colourful automotive retailers.
The household of Cal Worthington, who died in 2013 at 92, is promoting the final dealership bearing his title, Worthington Ford in Lengthy Seaside, Calif.
Worthington turned well-known for airing commercials that includes loony antics with “My Canine Spot.” The hook was that Spot was by no means a canine; it could be an elephant, a tiger, a hippo — even a killer whale.
At his peak within the Sixties, Worthington ran a retail empire of 29 dealerships that stretched from Houston to San Diego to Anchorage, Alaska.
The Lengthy Seaside dealership’s purchaser, Nouri/Shaver Car Group, will rename the shop BP Ford, and the Worthington signage comes down this week.
“It’s totally unhappy,” grandson Nick Worthington advised Los Angeles’ ABC7. “Our workers have been with us 40-plus years. It is part of everybody’s childhood and life rising up right here. It is arduous to shut that ebook for everyone.”
Paradoxically, Cal Worthington admitted in an interview with Automotive Information in 2009 that he was by no means a automotive fanatic. His coronary heart was in agriculture, however “I started promoting automobiles as a result of individuals like me.”