I kinda have a hunch that ol' Cal provided cheap, decent wheels for generations of people, repeat customers, referrals, year after year, decade after decade. Fly-by-night operations are the only venues in which shysters can survive. Cal Worthington's was the opposite of a fly-by-night operation. On the contrary, it probably outlasted 90 percent of its competitors over the decades. Stability and consistency are hardly the marks of "real shysters."
***If Cal Worthington was such a shyster, how did he stay in business for as long as he did? ***
My neighbor from LA said he was. I had no dealings with Worthington as I was hundreds of miles away.
My father was an investigator for the DMV in the area. As I remember, he told me there were some complaints about Cal, but they always ended up clean. Dad had no problem with me going there when I shopped for cars, but steered me clear of some other dealers.
He once told me that the biggest problems the DMV had were rollbacks done by private parties and small car dealers, whose low sales volume increased the need for profit.
I think my Dad had something to do with the closing of Ralph Williams; that’s an OLD memory.