Latest / The Ric and Dan Show / "It's American. It's an American thing": Tom, Jim, and David Quirk of Quirk Auto

Transcript

"It's American. It's an American thing": Tom, Jim, and David Quirk of Quirk Auto · The Ric and Dan Show

• 0:01
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) He's Rick Tyler and he's Dan Cashman and we're the Court Boys and we are on the Rick and
• 0:06
  Dan Show.
• 0:07
  In Maine, we often hear, you can't get there from here.
• 0:10
  These are the stories of the risk takers, the trailblazers, those who turn obstacles
• 0:14
  into opportunities every day and found their way to get there from here.
• 0:19
  And today, they're on the Rick and Dan Show.
• 0:23
  But what'd you do with the fourth guy?
• 0:25
  Is he trussed up in the back of a trunk somewhere headed south on Interstate 95?
• 0:28
  Exactly.
• 0:29
  The best thing for us.
• 0:30
  Or is he getting his car worked on?
• 0:33
  Broke down?
• 0:34
  Maybe it is.
• 0:34
  We're going to start with something fun, guys.
• 0:36
  Yep.
• 0:36
  These are called cartoons.
• 0:37
  These are famous songs and lyrics, but you've got to identify the vehicle.
• 0:41
  Number one is just an example.
• 0:43
  Can you give them question number one as the example of a little fun?
• 0:46
  And you guys can play as a team because we know you all get along so well.
• 0:49
  Very well.
• 0:50
  In Katy Perry's song, The One That Got Away, she is making out to Radiohead in what?
• 0:57
  Is that a Chevrolet pickup?
• 0:59
  No, it's not a Chevy pickup.
• 1:00
  It's a pickup though, right?
• 1:01
  Nope.
• 1:02
  I don't even know who Katy Perry is.
• 1:06
  She's a singer.
• 1:07
  I know that.
• 1:08
  Yeah.
• 1:08
  If you've seen her, you'd remember her.
• 1:09
  I'm going to say Corvette.
• 1:10
  It's not a Corvette.
• 1:11
  You got one more try.
• 1:12
  Camaro.
• 1:12
  Nope.
• 1:13
  Give him the right answer, Dan.
• 1:14
  It's a Mustang.
• 1:14
  It's a Mustang.
• 1:16
  Made out of your Mustang to Radiohead.
• 1:18
  Isn't it?
• 1:18
  So I'm going to give you one more just for fun.
• 1:20
  This will be a much easier one, OK?
• 1:22
  He owned a lot of vehicles, but Prince never owned what?
• 1:25
  Red Corvette?
• 1:26
  Red Corvette.
• 1:26
  Close.
• 1:27
  Can we accept that?
• 1:28
  We need one more word in there.
• 1:29
  I don't know.
• 1:30
  A little Red Corvette.
• 1:31
  A little Red Corvette.
• 1:32
  There you go.
• 1:33
  I just recently learned what that song was about, by the way.
• 1:37
  Not as family-friendly as I thought it was.
• 1:39
  8-6-7-5-3-0-9.
• 1:39
  8-6-7-5-3-0-9.
• 1:42
  Before you people were where you are today in this sprawling complex, where were you
• 1:48
  guys?
• 1:48
  Griffin Road.
• 1:49
  When was Summer Street?
• 1:50
  Summer Street was, what, in the 80s?
• 1:52
  The 80s, yes.
• 1:53
  Summer Street was being in Conquest.
• 1:55
  We bought Bean in Conquest.
• 1:56
  And you bought Bean in Conquest.
• 1:58
  Subaru was the first.
• 1:59
  The first place was really actually on Harlow Street, across from the Mammoth Mart.
• 2:03
  Right, where my grandfather did that front-end machine at the Shell Station.
• 2:06
  We dating ourselves or what, going all the way back to Mammoth Mart, so we're on Harlow
• 2:10
  Street.
• 2:11
  Kitty Corner to where City Hall is now?
• 2:12
  About that area?
• 2:13
  Across from the post office.
• 2:15
  The old post office.
• 2:16
  The old post office.
• 2:17
  It was Shell Station, if I can remember, on the corner.
• 2:19
  And you must have thought at that time, this is it, we've arrived, boys.
• 2:22
  Yeah.
• 2:22
  Yeah.
• 2:24
  Cleaning cars outdoors.
• 2:26
  In the rain.
• 2:27
  How did it go from there?
• 2:28
  From there, selling used vehicles over to Griffin Road, selling used vehicles, and then
• 2:32
  we got the Subaru franchise.
• 2:34
  They were still in diapers when that was happening, so.
• 2:38
  I might have been.
• 2:39
  I would ride my bike.
• 2:40
  Seven or eight years old.
• 2:41
  So what was the name of the place on Griffin Road?
• 2:43
  Village Subaru.
• 2:44
  Village Subaru.
• 2:45
  So that would be, what was the name before the Subaru franchise?
• 2:48
  It was a Chaparral Snowmobile Dealership.
• 2:51
  Mr. Demmons.
• 2:52
  Gene Demmons, right?
• 2:53
  Was that one of your early influences?
• 2:55
  No.
• 2:55
  No.
• 2:55
  He was all right, but no.
• 2:57
  It was over by Bullseye Bridge.
• 2:59
  That was a big thing on Bullseye Bridge and Demmons.
• 3:01
  He was across the street.
• 3:02
  Him and his wife.
• 3:03
  Yeah, he lived across the street.
• 3:04
  Going back all the way back to the first location, across from Mammoth Mart, there must have been
• 3:09
  some good cross traffic.
• 3:10
  Wife's going into shop at Mammoth Mart, husband's going to go across the street and kick some
• 3:14
  tires maybe.
• 3:14
  Well, see, really, if you remember correctly, you had to pay to park out back with Mammoth
• 3:19
  Mart.
• 3:19
  I'm not that old.
• 3:20
  Yeah.
• 3:21
  So people used to try to park in the gas station and then walk across the street and that didn't
• 3:26
  go over very well.
• 3:27
  Well, you could charge them, I suppose.
• 3:30
  It wasn't that much more.
• 3:30
  A new set of tires isn't cheap.
• 3:32
  So my grandfather did front end alignments and we were just selling used vehicles out
• 3:36
  of the out front.
• 3:37
  At the Shell Station.
• 3:38
  At the Shell Station.
• 3:39
  David and I were real young.
• 3:40
  I was the one that was cleaning the cars, right.
• 3:43
  You were doing all the work.
• 3:44
  No, some of it, but I had a couple of brothers that are older than me.
• 3:47
  At any point in time in the location across from Mammoth Mart, which was called at the
• 3:51
  time Harlow Street Shell, and so you had cars that were for sale there.
• 3:56
  At any point in time there, did you think, okay, we're big enough, we don't need to get
• 4:00
  any bigger?
• 4:01
  We didn't get the franchise until later on.
• 4:04
  And my father had a partner, Ron Burrow.
• 4:06
  Then they both worked.
• 4:08
  They had his darlings together and they got accepted to have the Subaru franchise.
• 4:14
  And then they made us build a building.
• 4:16
  So we had to move from there.
• 4:17
  They made you build a building.
• 4:19
  Yes.
• 4:19
  We had to build a building so we could service it because we had no service.
• 4:21
  Right.
• 4:22
  You had to meet some criterias for Subaru to do that, like lifts and so on.
• 4:26
  And it all came together, you know, to put the building there for Subaru and they accepted
• 4:32
  us and we started selling cars there.
• 4:34
  How difficult of a decision was that to make that investment?
• 4:38
  I think more of it was investment than anything else, you know, to build a building.
• 4:42
  It was always cash.
• 4:43
  Cash was king.
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  You know, get it built.
• 4:46
  From there, get it financed in, you know, no difference.
• 4:49
  Anyone starting a business today, financing, finding a bank.
• 4:53
  What year was this?
• 4:54
  I think early 71.
• 4:55
  50 years ago.
• 4:56
  This would have been the first Subaru dealership in Bangor at the time.
• 5:00
  No.
• 5:00
  Beacon had it.
• 5:01
  Beacon?
• 5:02
  Beacon had the franchise.
• 5:03
  So you had to wrestle it away?
• 5:05
  They gave it up.
• 5:06
  They gave it up.
• 5:07
  Oh, yeah.
• 5:07
  Do you think they regret that?
• 5:09
  Probably.
• 5:10
  It took a long time to get where we are.
• 5:13
  I don't want to use the word fear, but how cautious did you find yourself as you made
• 5:18
  that big step?
• 5:19
  Okay, we're going to be more than just a place selling cars and a service station.
• 5:23
  We were kids.
• 5:25
  We were kids.
• 5:25
  We were in high school.
• 5:27
  I understand that.
• 5:28
  My father obviously would be the one.
• 5:30
  In Ronvereau.
• 5:30
  In Ronvereau.
• 5:31
  You know, I'm sure they mortgaged maybe their houses and stuff like that to get in, to get
• 5:36
  the cash down and so on.
• 5:37
  So I'm sure.
• 5:38
  But they believed in themselves.
• 5:39
  You know, they, my father and Ron, Ron worked in the parts and, and my father was a sales
• 5:45
  side, so.
• 5:46
  So it was our father, Ronvereau in parts, my brother Bob and Rick Curtis, which was
• 5:52
  our cousin.
• 5:53
  And Terry Burchill.
• 5:54
  And Terry Burchill.
• 5:55
  And Brenda Kingsbury with probably the five kingpins of the store.
• 5:59
  So you had a team.
• 6:01
  So did that help?
• 6:02
  We hear this from others that when it's one person, okay, it's kind of scary.
• 6:06
  But when you got a team, I don't know, you feed off each other.
• 6:08
  You got each other's back and okay, I really think we can do this.
• 6:11
  And you build yourself up to the point that, you know what, you throw your hat over the
• 6:15
  wall and you make the jump.
• 6:17
  Yeah.
• 6:17
  See, I would say that it was, you know, again, just like today, as it was back then, we had,
• 6:21
  my father had enough key people to work around him to keep him going.
• 6:25
  Again, his, our father was pretty big on employee stuff, you know, keeping him going and, and
• 6:29
  you know, like with a Christmas bonus and the turkey baskets and summer parties and
• 6:34
  all that other stuff.
• 6:35
  He still did the turkey baskets.
• 6:36
  Oh yeah.
• 6:36
  He certainly do.
• 6:37
  And the Christmas parties, you know, and the bonuses and stuff.
• 6:40
  So that's, you know, that really any good company isn't the company, it's the people
• 6:44
  that are in the company that make it work.
• 6:46
  And you know, we're fortunate enough to still have that today.
• 6:49
  They had a different idea and that's where Village came from, that they wanted a Village
• 6:53
  atmosphere, you know, it had bricks in there and so on.
• 6:57
  It was, it was a atmosphere for customers, you know, another thing that no one had is
• 7:01
  coffee was free.
• 7:02
  You know, if we forced that.
• 7:03
  Oh, we like the sound of that.
• 7:04
  And then, and then we had, we had donuts for the customers on Saturday.
• 7:08
  And roses, remember?
• 7:09
  Yeah.
• 7:10
  The women.
• 7:10
  Yeah.
• 7:11
  And so they had an idea of to be different than what they, where other people were.
• 7:16
  And, and, you know, we started from scratch basically.
• 7:19
  If you buy a Chevy franchise, there's some Chevys out there to service.
• 7:22
  When you buy a Subaru franchise back then, there was no Subarus on the road.
• 7:25
  So you had to build it to make service department in the past.
• 7:28
  So it started right from really nothing to grow into what it is.
• 7:32
  Village.
• 7:32
  Yeah.
• 7:35
  It's out in the country.
• 7:36
  Yeah.
• 7:36
  And well, I wonder if anyone shows up and said, okay, where's Mr. Village?
• 7:41
  Because most dealers, I mean, Quirk, I mean, it's the name of the family and then it's
• 7:45
  whatever the dealership, Quirk, Subaru and whatever.
• 7:48
  But did anyone come up and say, well, who's Village and where are they?
• 7:51
  We changed that when we bought Chevrolet, right?
• 7:53
  They make it Quirk.
• 7:55
  Yeah.
• 7:55
  We changed it from Village to Quirk to put it all, all together, all our different franchises.
• 8:00
  When you're saying you were, you were just kids when Village Subaru came to be, how old
• 8:05
  are we talking?
• 8:05
  Are we talking four and five?
• 8:06
  No.
• 8:06
  I was probably 10.
• 8:08
  So I was a freshman in high school.
• 8:10
  Okay.
• 8:10
  My father used to pull me out of school to go clean cars.
• 8:13
  So it'd be two o'clock or one o'clock and a load of cars would come in and then they
• 8:17
  pick me up.
• 8:18
  I didn't have my license then and go in and clean them.
• 8:20
  Did they page you over the PA system at the school?
• 8:21
  Oh yeah.
• 8:22
  I remember.
• 8:22
  I remember.
• 8:25
  I remember 1130.
• 8:26
  I was always in Spanish class and all of a sudden I get a page to come to the office.
• 8:30
  My grandfather was there to pick me up.
• 8:34
  I don't know how many dentist appointments I had, but I had a lot of them.
• 8:38
  And I'm sure the family paid very, very well for your services, didn't they?
• 8:42
  Actually, I think Brenda Kingsbury wrote more notes than anyone did for her, so please excuse
• 8:47
  Tom's absence.
• 8:48
  And that's why she was a charter member of the team.
• 8:50
  She could sign my desk.
• 8:51
  Mr. Green is not around anymore.
• 8:52
  I hope he isn't here.
• 8:54
  So you go to Village.
• 8:55
  How long was Griffin Road, right?
• 8:57
  Village was at Griffin Road.
• 8:58
  How long were you there?
• 8:58
  We moved over in the Hogan Road, I think 1980 is when we moved to the Hogan Road.
• 9:04
  So you were there for a good-
• 9:06
  Almost 10 years.
• 9:07
  10 years, a full decade or so.
• 9:09
  Was it the traffic that you needed?
• 9:10
  We were too small in the service department.
• 9:13
  We needed more lifts for our service, for our people.
• 9:16
  We had lifts at the mobile station around the corner of Mulholland and Union Street.
• 9:21
  And then over on Broadway-
• 9:23
  Shell Station, over to Ravens, Tire and Raven, Big Fit Auto Body was-
• 9:27
  Well, you were like the railroads on the Monopoly board.
• 9:29
  You were here and there and everywhere.
• 9:31
  No, we did the service of cars, but you serviced them all over the bank.
• 9:33
  You've got to remember back then when the cars came in, we had to clean them, rustproof
• 9:37
  them.
• 9:38
  Was it Rusty Jones?
• 9:39
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:40
  Good old Rusty Jones.
• 9:41
  Remember the joke?
• 9:41
  Hello, Rusty Jones.
• 9:43
  I remember the window sticker.
• 9:44
  Rusty car.
• 9:45
  My friend Mitzi Clark, her mom would give us a ride to school in the morning.
• 9:49
  I have super weird memories from the earliest days, but I remember the Rusty Jones window
• 9:53
  sticker in her Subaru.
• 9:55
  And for some reason, I haven't forgotten that.
• 9:57
  We used to do-
• 9:58
  I remember we had to put the mirrors and the carpets in them.
• 10:02
  Seat belts.
• 10:02
  And put that stuff together before we could sell them, put the carpets in them and stuff.
• 10:06
  It was non-toxic.
• 10:08
  No PFAS back then.
• 10:10
  It turned out just fine.
• 10:12
  We don't talk about that.
• 10:14
  But when I talk about the traffic, I wonder about your Griffin.
• 10:18
  You're close to the airport when the airport was, wow.
• 10:21
  Yeah.
• 10:23
  Because planes weren't able to fly as far.
• 10:25
  So they had to stop in Bangor.
• 10:27
  And that's when we had the liquor and the duty free.
• 10:30
  And you had so many more flights.
• 10:31
  Airport mall and Westgate mall, both there.
• 10:34
  And so you were in a high traffic area.
• 10:37
  Bonanza.
• 10:38
  I miss Bonanza.
• 10:39
  Oh, man.
• 10:40
  That was so bad.
• 10:41
  Captain Nick's was-
• 10:42
  Captain Nick's?
• 10:42
  Right.
• 10:43
  Checkmate.
• 10:44
  Yeah.
• 10:45
  Italian village.
• 10:46
  Yeah.
• 10:46
  What was the one with the train there?
• 10:48
  What was that?
• 10:48
  Was that part of Captain Nick's?
• 10:50
  No, no.
• 10:50
  That was a check wagon.
• 10:52
  Check wagon.
• 10:53
  Right.
• 10:53
  Are we reminiscing or are we-
• 10:55
  Well, it's just the point that-
• 10:56
  I'm craving a steak right now.
• 10:57
  I don't know about you guys.
• 10:58
  Steak tips.
• 11:00
  No tipping partner.
• 11:01
  Yeah.
• 11:02
  Remember that?
• 11:02
  It was son of the wall.
• 11:03
  Now we're reminiscing.
• 11:04
  But the point being that you were downtown when you needed to be downtown.
• 11:08
  I don't know if you picked your location to go and create village on the Griffin Road,
• 11:13
  get yourself closer to where that is.
• 11:15
  And then over time, we saw that shift of the attention, the traffic, and went to Hogan Road.
• 11:19
  Correct.
• 11:20
  Bangor Mall when it came in, in 1978?
• 11:24
  Well, you got to remember before that though, they were talking about doing a bypass around
• 11:27
  the interstate to come out through Beaumont Missile Base, back around again and come around
• 11:32
  and stuff.
• 11:32
  And it was going to go right over Griffin Road.
• 11:34
  You know, there was a big talk about that.
• 11:36
  I don't know if you can remember that or not.
• 11:38
  Well, I remember Bonanza, but I don't remember that.
• 11:39
  No.
• 11:40
  So there was a possibility that there was going to be a bypass on the interstate to
• 11:44
  come through that way.
• 11:45
  And so we moved up there.
• 11:46
  You saw that coming and then you thought, okay, this is going to come.
• 11:49
  We need to move ourselves.
• 11:51
  Well, Subaru outgrew itself there.
• 11:53
  Plus Subaru of New England, there's two Subarus, New England, Subaru of America, asked us
• 11:58
  to up our game, you know, to invest.
• 12:01
  And they do, we do that like every 10, that's why we got a new building now.
• 12:04
  So like every 10 or 12 years.
• 12:06
  So they actually help us look at different properties and they, you know, for decision
• 12:11
  to where to go and so on.
• 12:12
  Actually, we were going to go in the Bangor Motor Inn because we own that property.
• 12:16
  But then we moved down the road, which was better because it wasn't so congested down
• 12:22
  there.
• 12:22
  Am I hearing right that, and I know we're, we're, we're no longer talking chronologically
• 12:26
  here.
• 12:26
  We're bouncing all over the place, but you had an opportunity to either choose to go
• 12:30
  in where Bangor Motor Inn is or to go to where the Kmart was.
• 12:35
  I'm not in business.
• 12:36
  I am a couple of bristles short of a broom, but to me, that's a no brainer.
• 12:39
  We are in business in the Bangor Motor Inn.
• 12:41
  So that's our property with the valleys and Aramida and gals, right?
• 12:46
  And then we got in business, the motel business, and then bought the property further down
• 12:51
  where we are now.
• 12:52
  Kmart just happened to come along because we needed the space for parts.
• 12:55
  And you're right near the liquor store.
• 12:57
  Yeah.
• 12:57
  Which is good.
• 12:58
  Cause if someone, I'm a little sketchy about buying this car here, go take a slug and come
• 13:02
  back and talk to me at about five.
• 13:04
  Yeah.
• 13:04
  Loosen up a little.
• 13:05
  So the decision was using an existing property you already own or purchase a new property
• 13:10
  that happened to be the former Kmart.
• 13:11
  And everything has to be approved by Subaru though.
• 13:14
  By any manufacturer.
• 13:15
  Any manufacturer.
• 13:15
  Chevrolet or whatever.
• 13:17
  Are they sticklers?
• 13:18
  Sometimes.
• 13:18
  Subaru is easy.
• 13:19
  Some aren't.
• 13:20
  Chevrolet or Ford or they're not, but Subaru is, they're very easy to work with.
• 13:25
  Cause they're foreign?
• 13:27
  I don't know.
• 13:27
  Mercedes is tougher.
• 13:28
  We've known them for 50 something years, so they kind of trust us.
• 13:32
  So, but it's not, uh, and it took what, three or four years to come up with this building,
• 13:36
  new building.
• 13:36
  It took us a lot of designing and thinking and to build this building.
• 13:41
  When you talk about they wanted you, they want you to have a new building, they want
• 13:44
  you to do upgrades.
• 13:45
  Is it a, we would like you to do this or you need to do this to keep the franchise?
• 13:49
  Every so often you have to sign a deal.
• 13:51
  What are you laughing at?
• 13:52
  You have to sign it.
• 13:53
  I didn't think that was a funny question.
• 13:54
  No, it's a great question.
• 13:55
  So you have to sign a dealer agreement every five or seven years and they can force you
• 14:00
  or mandate you to build a new building.
• 14:03
  If you want to keep the franchise, you got to do what they want you to do.
• 14:06
  So business constantly has to be good for you to keep the franchise.
• 14:11
  They look at your business development over the years and what they expect you to be doing.
• 14:15
  And also if, see in our other building, we were booking two to three weeks out for service.
• 14:21
  So that's not good because you're losing.
• 14:23
  So now we've got twice as many lifts and technicians.
• 14:27
  Another big problem is we didn't have a drive-thru, what we do now.
• 14:29
  So people had to go outside and walk in in the cold and so on, but now it's, it's a drive-thru.
• 14:34
  They have a formula called planning potential and that's where your building's got to be
• 14:39
  based off.
• 14:39
  How many service hours, what, you know, where do you open and that stuff.
• 14:43
  How many brands you up to now?
• 14:45
  14.
• 14:45
  We'll give you a moment to count.
• 14:46
  Do you need some extra fingers here on this?
• 14:48
  You know, it depends how you count them, but I think it's 17.
• 14:52
  That's statewide though.
• 14:53
  Not just...
• 14:53
  Yeah.
• 14:53
  You know, cause you got Ram as one franchise and then Chrysler was one.
• 14:58
  Is there any that you don't have that you're angling for, you're eyeing?
• 15:02
  No.
• 15:03
  We have a lot.
• 15:04
  We're all one happy family.
• 15:05
  You have the Duster franchise cause I would love one of those.
• 15:09
  We can work that out.
• 15:10
  So what don't you have?
• 15:12
  We don't have Toyota or Honda.
• 15:14
  Really?
• 15:14
  Or Nissan.
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  Who needs them?
• 15:17
  People like them.
• 15:19
  Do you ever think about crossing the river?
• 15:20
  To Brewer?
• 15:21
  No.
• 15:22
  Brewer's a nice place.
• 15:23
  Don't get us wrong.
• 15:24
  It's lovely.
• 15:25
  Especially this time of year.
• 15:27
  You might as well say you got to remember we're all cousins and we're all related.
• 15:30
  Well, we wanted to get to that because you guys are on one side of the river.
• 15:34
  No, they're right next door, but anyway.
• 15:36
  Okay.
• 15:36
  Yes.
• 15:37
  Do you ever meet in the middle of the day and sip coffee and look at each other and go...
• 15:41
  Weddings and funerals.
• 15:43
  You know, you stop and you think about, you know, their father, I guess, or their grandfather,
• 15:49
  Owen Darling, put a lot of people in business.
• 15:51
  You know, the guy was a strong man, a very well-respected man in the city and then in
• 15:56
  the automobile business with parts and sales.
• 15:58
  Owen Darling was a king.
• 15:59
  He was a king.
• 16:00
  He's a kingpin.
• 16:01
  Of the whole thing.
• 16:02
  A or the?
• 16:03
  The.
• 16:03
  The kingpin.
• 16:04
  Okay.
• 16:04
  So it started, you know.
• 16:06
  Owen Darling married a quirk and that's how we got married.
• 16:09
  My grandfather's sister.
• 16:11
  Owen Darling's wife.
• 16:12
  We're going to chart out the family tree later.
• 16:14
  Yeah.
• 16:14
  A little sketch.
• 16:15
  Post it to the website.
• 16:17
  You know, it's, it's, the Darlings were very good to us.
• 16:20
  We were very close.
• 16:22
  We used to go to Sunday's over at their house.
• 16:24
  Was there ever a time that someone looked at you and your relatives and thought, okay,
• 16:29
  you're flirting with a monopoly here.
• 16:31
  Break it up, boys.
• 16:32
  Competition.
• 16:33
  No way.
• 16:33
  No, no.
• 16:34
  You know, you remember back then there was Rappaport.
• 16:37
  Holy cow.
• 16:38
  There's a name out of the past.
• 16:40
  Varney's.
• 16:41
  Linehan had a dealership in Vancouver.
• 16:43
  Yep.
• 16:43
  They owned Ford.
• 16:44
  Yep.
• 16:44
  Ford.
• 16:44
  And then the Volkswagen dealership.
• 16:46
  It was.
• 16:47
  Pines State.
• 16:48
  Pines State.
• 16:49
  You know, so now, and again, you know, most of them are all family owned automobile stores.
• 16:53
  I mean, you think about the automobile business, it's mostly family in the state.
• 16:57
  You've got Lee and.
• 16:59
  Charlie's.
• 16:59
  Yep.
• 17:00
  Charlie's.
• 17:00
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  Pape.
• 17:01
  It's true.
• 17:02
  It is legacy, isn't it?
• 17:03
  Yeah.
• 17:03
  It's a family because you want to, we talk about this all the time, because you want
• 17:06
  a relationship with a person.
• 17:08
  You might go to Walmart, but you're not going to buy something from Sam Walton there.
• 17:12
  Okay.
• 17:12
  But when you're buying something like a car, you go to someone, you know, because it's
• 17:16
  more about relationship.
• 17:17
  You know, you look at what we do in the communities and what they do in the communities.
• 17:21
  You know, we're at the little league fields, we're at the hockey, you know, the soccer games,
• 17:25
  you know, the hospital, you know, all the events, you know, that's, you know, that's
• 17:29
  what really in a relationship, like you said, you know, we're with the people, we're there
• 17:32
  and, you know, you don't see the Walmarts or the Sam's out there with you and stuff.
• 17:36
  And that's, you know, that's what really makes everything click.
• 17:39
  Not just here, but here to Portland.
• 17:40
  You know, everywhere, you know, Rockland.
• 17:42
  Did that enter into the mindset at all when you did change the name from Village to Quark
• 17:47
  to bring it all together was, were there any other names suggested or, or was it the last
• 17:51
  name?
• 17:52
  It was, again, it was all branded, you know, just like what you guys do.
• 17:55
  You know, it's easy to have one plate that says Quark, then Rockland Ford or Rockland
• 17:59
  this or Belfast that, you know, and stuff.
• 18:02
  When we changed the name is when the internet was coming out.
• 18:05
  So it was dot com.
• 18:06
  But you were, you were using, and again, I have weird memories, but I seem to remember
• 18:11
  Village Subaru ad campaigns involving you all, the Quark boys.
• 18:15
  And it seems like I knew the name, the Quark boys, more than I knew the name Village Subaru.
• 18:20
  Was that intentional leading into the idea to rebrand?
• 18:25
  We're not that smart.
• 18:31
  Yeah, we stumbled on that one, did you?
• 18:35
  The reason it was, is to get the name Quarkauto.com and that's to get it under our name, not to
• 18:44
  lose it to maybe another Quark around, around.
• 18:46
  So that's what it was all about when we switched it over.
• 18:49
  Well, I see that in Massachusetts when I travel.
• 18:51
  Yes, different Quark.
• 18:53
  That is, well, I thought it was, I think I even asked you that once.
• 18:56
  There's no relation.
• 18:57
  No, no.
• 18:57
  Well, there could be, but it's way.
• 18:59
  Well, I don't know.
• 18:59
  You're related to everybody else in the industry.
• 19:01
  It seems like I couldn't imagine.
• 19:03
  It's weird though, isn't it?
• 19:04
  Two Quarks, two B.
• 19:05
  Have they ever tried to purchase your domain name from you?
• 19:08
  The Massachusetts Quarks?
• 19:09
  That's not a very good question.
• 19:13
  Beautiful day out there, isn't it?
• 19:14
  I will strike that from the record.
• 19:18
  Let's ask a few more cartoon questions.
• 19:19
  Yeah, let's go with that.
• 19:20
  Okay, you ready?
• 19:21
  Okay, here's your next question.
• 19:22
  All right.
• 19:22
  These are cartoons.
• 19:23
  See what we did there?
• 19:24
  Cars.
• 19:25
  T-U-N-E-S.
• 19:26
  Quark cartoons.
• 19:27
  This is really easy.
• 19:28
  Okay.
• 19:28
  Bruce Springsteen owned it new.
• 19:30
  Natalie Cole bought it pre-owned.
• 19:33
  What is it?
• 19:35
  I'll give you a hint.
• 19:37
  It's pink.
• 19:39
  Cadillac.
• 19:39
  Pink Cadillac.
• 19:40
  There you go.
• 19:41
  The Beach Boys told us she didn't take it to the library like she told her old man
• 19:46
  now.
• 19:48
  Little Deuce Coupe.
• 19:49
  Oh, you're...
• 19:50
  Not the Little Deuce Coupe.
• 19:53
  She didn't go to the library like she told her old man now.
• 19:57
  And I know the Beach Boys.
• 19:59
  Yes, wait a second.
• 19:59
  Wait a second.
• 20:00
  No, no.
• 20:00
  No, no.
• 20:02
  We had fun, fun, fun.
• 20:04
  Had fun, fun, fun until daddy does what?
• 20:06
  Take the T-Bird away.
• 20:07
  The T-Bird away.
• 20:08
  There you go.
• 20:09
  All right.
• 20:10
  Okay.
• 20:10
  See, now we're having fun.
• 20:12
  All right, ready?
• 20:13
  It took me a minute.
• 20:14
  Janice Joplin famously asked the Lord to buy her what?
• 20:19
  Oh, Lord.
• 20:21
  Oh, Lord.
• 20:22
  Why don't you...
• 20:22
  Boy, if you don't get this...
• 20:24
  Chevrolet or something.
• 20:25
  No.
• 20:25
  Oh, my word.
• 20:26
  It's up on your sign.
• 20:27
  Duster?
• 20:28
  No.
• 20:29
  Cadillac?
• 20:29
  No.
• 20:30
  No.
• 20:31
  Right now, there are people listening to this podcast and they are screaming the answer.
• 20:35
  Oh, Lord.
• 20:36
  Won't you buy me a brand new Mercedes Benz?
• 20:42
  Oh, my word.
• 20:43
  My friends all have Mercedes Benz.
• 20:43
  You all have one.
• 20:44
  I must make amends.
• 20:45
  Yeah.
• 20:45
  This one's tough.
• 20:46
  This one's tough.
• 20:47
  Chuck Berry's Maybelline has him chasing a Cadillac while driving what?
• 20:55
  No idea.
• 20:56
  It's a V8 Ford.
• 20:57
  A V8 Ford.
• 20:58
  V8 Ford.
• 20:59
  But I'm feeling confident that Chevrolet is the most vehicle.
• 21:03
  Sung about?
• 21:04
  It very well...
• 21:05
  When I researched these questions, I would...
• 21:07
  Yes, I got to agree with you.
• 21:08
  I don't know.
• 21:09
  Mercedes is pretty close.
• 21:10
  Hotel California.
• 21:11
  No.
• 21:12
  Chevrolet is...
• 21:12
  Post Malone.
• 21:13
  Post Malone.
• 21:13
  When the internet came and newspapers were no longer printing what normally came out in
• 21:19
  like the Sunday ads or the weekend paper, I can remember my dad would get that and he'd
• 21:24
  fold that up and tuck it under his shoulder and he'd say to Joy, Mom, I'm going for a
• 21:29
  ride.
• 21:29
  And I knew where he was going.
• 21:30
  My dad must have owned 78, 90 vehicles in his time, traded them like playing cards.
• 21:36
  And then the internet came.
• 21:37
  Did that change the way people then came to see you?
• 21:40
  Because they could come up with a piece of paper or something circled here.
• 21:42
  Hey, can you show me this model right here?
• 21:44
  I'm really interested in this one, sir.
• 21:46
  I got to tell you a funny story.
• 21:48
  I was moving from the Subaru down to the new Subaru and I'm going through my desk.
• 21:52
  I open up my desk and I look and I find a ruler.
• 21:56
  It's a Bangor Daily News ruler.
• 21:59
  And what we used to do is we used to measure it, the length of the paper to see how much
• 22:04
  the ad would cost.
• 22:06
  And it was all written out on it.
• 22:08
  And that's just from when you just moved from your location down to the new spot?
• 22:11
  It was sitting in my desk.
• 22:13
  Yeah, into my desk.
• 22:14
  And I watched my call.
• 22:15
  I kept it.
• 22:15
  What the heck?
• 22:16
  But maybe it might be worth $5, 50 more years from now.
• 22:20
  But the advertising was completely different.
• 22:22
  And we were kind of prepared for it ourselves.
• 22:25
  Subaru is quite ahead of doing that kind of a market and so on.
• 22:28
  We were educated of how to get ready on, you know, I remember the first, you know, we had
• 22:33
  the internet when they came in and they installed a computer for us to get on the internet and
• 22:37
  so on.
• 22:38
  But it was a killer to obviously to Bangor Daily News for the ad.
• 22:42
  But it's not an easy thing either.
• 22:44
  Everything is done by leads.
• 22:46
  We put money into it, digital advertising, and see if we can get a lead and so on, but
• 22:50
  in how to get the right people to get into leads.
• 22:54
  But it's different and it changed and it changed real quick.
• 22:57
  I don't know if I...
• 22:58
  Definitely educated them.
• 22:59
  You know, they can get more educated on the internet.
• 23:02
  And there's nothing wrong with that.
• 23:03
  And technology.
• 23:04
  Right.
• 23:04
  And know what they want when they get there.
• 23:06
  And, you know, instead of, you know, they're more prepared.
• 23:08
  Take a used car.
• 23:09
  If they want a certain used car, they can go in and look, you know, no different than
• 23:12
  anyone else.
• 23:13
  If they want to color this and that and so on, you know, they can check where they can
• 23:16
  find it in the state or whatever.
• 23:18
  Well, when the Bangor Daily News then had to, and you could insert the name of any newspaper
• 23:22
  in that question right there.
• 23:23
  But when they had to make that pivot, because, you know, the ads aren't coming in because
• 23:27
  people are now searching online, you still had probably a clientele that didn't surf
• 23:32
  the web.
• 23:33
  Correct.
• 23:33
  And they still wanted that.
• 23:35
  Right.
• 23:35
  And I think maybe your sales department had to maybe act a little differently.
• 23:39
  You find the person wandering the lot.
• 23:40
  You realize, okay, that person looks a little lost because they don't have the paper tucked
• 23:43
  under their arm.
• 23:44
  And we better go help them find what they're looking for.
• 23:46
  I think we treated everyone the same.
• 23:48
  We used to look at their radio sometimes to see which station they had it on.
• 23:52
  So make sure we're advertising on the right.
• 23:55
  That was way back.
• 23:57
  Oh, don't think I haven't noticed when I get, I take my vehicle in to be serviced, it comes
• 24:00
  back out, the station's changed on it.
• 24:03
  So I, we used to praise the car and then we just look at the, you know, the radio and see
• 24:07
  and note it down, which, you know, so make sure we're spending our money, you know, no
• 24:12
  different than the internet or the newspaper, you know, which newspaper they're bringing
• 24:15
  in, you know, is it the Sunday or the weekly, you know, the weekly shopper was a big thing
• 24:20
  when it used to come out on Thursdays, you know, it put in people's mailboxes and what
• 24:25
  they had on it.
• 24:26
  What about ValPak?
• 24:28
  You had those coupons to Bonanza in there.
• 24:32
  All you can eat, Tom, right up your alley.
• 24:36
  Like we said, y'all get along so well.
• 24:39
  I had never seen your lot so empty than during COVID.
• 24:44
  Yeah, that was crazy.
• 24:45
  We all had concerns.
• 24:48
  I'll say it, fear.
• 24:49
  What was it like for you?
• 24:51
  And I saw you space out the vehicles to, you know, make it seem like, yes, there's something
• 24:55
  here, even as we were all facing the realization that it's just not happening like it used
• 25:00
  to be.
• 25:00
  There's a couple of things that happened.
• 25:01
  Number one is we got to keep our employees employed.
• 25:04
  You know what I'm saying?
• 25:05
  They're not losing them.
• 25:06
  Next thing is we didn't take advantage of the public.
• 25:08
  A lot of people mocked the cars over what their MSRP was.
• 25:12
  We never did that.
• 25:14
  We made sure that people knew that we, you know, we stayed the course.
• 25:18
  We stayed the course.
• 25:19
  We didn't.
• 25:20
  And then there's a lot of people today that are in big issues because of it, because they
• 25:23
  owe too much on their car because it dropped back down.
• 25:26
  But we did not overprice our cars.
• 25:28
  What was that meeting like?
• 25:29
  That never really came out, really.
• 25:30
  We were talking to the banks, obviously, we're talking to banks, make sure we could get some
• 25:35
  funding because we did not lay any employees off during that time.
• 25:39
  We were just making sure we could hold on to get through it.
• 25:42
  And, you know, we were concerned, as you said, and we obviously tried to get involved with
• 25:46
  what's going on with MADA, Tom Brown, and I forget, Janet Mills, commissioner there that
• 25:52
  we checked with a couple of times just to see how long, when she shut us down, how long
• 25:57
  it was going to be.
• 25:57
  I remember calling Joe Baldacci and Ben Sprague about it, too, where we had, as Tom knows,
• 26:02
  he sold a lot of MiltonCAT vans, and we had three vans that we couldn't deliver to New
• 26:07
  York that was building the hospital down there, and they needed the vans, but the sales side
• 26:12
  was closed.
• 26:13
  So, you know, it hurt us.
• 26:14
  They made us turn the lights off.
• 26:16
  We can have our service lights on, but we had to turn our sales lights off.
• 26:20
  Which really didn't make a lot of sense.
• 26:21
  I had never heard that.
• 26:23
  Yeah.
• 26:24
  Yeah.
• 26:24
  Sales was closed, but service was open.
• 26:26
  Yeah.
• 26:27
  And they told you to shut the lights out?
• 26:30
  The police came back and looked.
• 26:32
  The police went to a couple of dealerships.
• 26:33
  And looked.
• 26:34
  Some dealerships were calling on each other for some strange reason.
• 26:38
  It was a little tough.
• 26:39
  It was tough.
• 26:40
  We had a lot of sleepless nights.
• 26:41
  Was that the toughest time?
• 26:43
  From your looking back?
• 26:44
  Other than 2000, what was it, 2008, 2009, when-
• 26:47
  The recession.
• 26:48
  The recession, when some of the manufacturers went into bankruptcy.
• 26:52
  That was tough.
• 26:53
  Banks.
• 26:54
  Banks were going bankrupt.
• 26:55
  Banks were going tough.
• 26:56
  They didn't want to floor payment.
• 26:58
  You know, new dealers and all that stuff.
• 27:00
  What vehicle do people come to you and ask for the most?
• 27:04
  Chevy trucks.
• 27:05
  Chevy trucks.
• 27:06
  Definitely.
• 27:07
  Hands down.
• 27:07
  Is that because of all the songs, do you think?
• 27:09
  Yeah.
• 27:10
  Must be.
• 27:11
  Why?
• 27:11
  I don't know.
• 27:12
  It's Chevy country.
• 27:13
  Is it American?
• 27:13
  It's American.
• 27:14
  It's an American thing.
• 27:15
  You know, Ford has its own niche, Chevrolet has its own niche in the trucks, and just,
• 27:20
  you know, this-
• 27:20
  It's a truck area.
• 27:21
  This whole area is a truck area.
• 27:23
  Yeah.
• 27:24
  Might not be in Boston, but it is in Bangalore.
• 27:27
  Talk about the expertise you've gotten from Subaru over the years.
• 27:31
  Do you use that with the other brands?
• 27:33
  Do you kind of take the expertise from all of the car manufacturers and mold it all together?
• 27:39
  Unfortunately, each franchise is different, and they all have different rules, I guess.
• 27:45
  So it's hard.
• 27:46
  What Subaru does versus what Mercedes does, it's a big difference.
• 27:50
  You know, Subaru has Subaru New England and Subaru of America.
• 27:53
  We just work with Mercedes-Benz USA.
• 27:56
  We have different guidelines, different way to have to deliver a car.
• 27:59
  We have delivery apps, and we're rated differently as far as the Mercedes-Benz goes, and they're
• 28:06
  really critical on service, parts, sales, you know.
• 28:10
  So it's tough to take one franchise and broaden it to all of them.
• 28:14
  Tough to find the service team?
• 28:16
  Technicians, yeah.
• 28:16
  Yeah.
• 28:17
  All three of you collectively went, hmm.
• 28:19
  We-
• 28:19
  At the same time.
• 28:20
  We do have a good vocational school here in Bangalore, and lucky we do.
• 28:24
  That's right.
• 28:24
  They're just across the road.
• 28:25
  We use it.
• 28:26
  We use it very much.
• 28:27
  Do you walk-
• 28:28
  Is it like that scene from The Untouchables?
• 28:30
  You want an apple, it's not bad.
• 28:31
  You catch it before it falls from the tree, and then Sean Connery takes Kevin Costner's
• 28:35
  character.
• 28:35
  They go down, they find Baldwin.
• 28:36
  You just go across the street, and hey, let's go find someone.
• 28:38
  Walk over to Eastern Maine Community College and look at, kid, come here.
• 28:42
  It used to, you used to go over there, but now you start in high school to get them.
• 28:46
  I said Eastern Maine Community College, but it could be UTC, which is, is it both, or
• 28:50
  it's just both?
• 28:51
  It is.
• 28:52
  So you have to-
• 28:53
  So you get them-
• 28:53
  No wonder you were on Hogan Road.
• 28:55
  UTC, and then you help them get through Eastern Maine.
• 28:58
  I call it vocational school, because that's where I went to school.
• 29:02
  Tom and Jim both went to-
• 29:04
  And yeah, you start then, and then help them get, we've put a lot of kids through school,
• 29:08
  and not just us.
• 29:09
  I'm sure there's other dealers as well.
• 29:11
  Again, they're all right there.
• 29:12
  We probably get probably four, probably no, maybe five or six working for us right now
• 29:18
  that are going to school there.
• 29:19
  Is it more difficult to find service folks for the other markets you're in?
• 29:23
  Getting comfort.
• 29:23
  In Portland.
• 29:24
  Portland is very hard.
• 29:25
  Very hard.
• 29:26
  Belfast.
• 29:27
  Rockland.
• 29:27
  Yeah.
• 29:28
  The smaller towns.
• 29:29
  Do you ever have like a day program, or three days out of the week, you're going to go work
• 29:32
  in Portland?
• 29:33
  I'll set you up there.
• 29:34
  No.
• 29:35
  We don't move them.
• 29:35
  Up here.
• 29:36
  Yeah.
• 29:36
  Because they're tools.
• 29:37
  They want the stability, right?
• 29:38
  Yeah.
• 29:39
  You have to be certified in the store, and you have to have to work on those vehicles.
• 29:42
  In the shop you're in.
• 29:43
  Yeah.
• 29:44
  As opposed to jumping in.
• 29:45
  If you're not certified, you can't get the warranty works.
• 29:47
  Can't work on the car.
• 29:48
  I want to tell you a phrase that we still laugh at today, and it's something that you, David,
• 29:53
  said to my wife once.
• 29:54
  And five bucks out of Dan's pocket if you can say the phrase before I say it.